
Glass 

Book K7 - 



THIRD SERIES 



OF 






PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY: 






MARTIN F. TUPPER. 




LONDON : 

r 

EDWARD MOXON & CO., DOVER STREET. 
1867. 



C 



f 






<v 



LONDON 
SWIFT & CO., 55, KING STREET, W. 



CONTENTS. 









page 


Preamble ... ... ... I 


Of Innocence and Guilt 




- l 3 


Of this World's Age 






... 28 


Of Circumstance 






... 41 


Of the Starry Heavens 






... 56 


Of Probabilities 






■■■ 79 


Of Scripture and Science 






.. 8 9 


Of Silence 






100 


Of Spiritual Presences 






.. 113 


Of Time 






."■ J 35 


Of little Providences 






.. 149 


Of Success 






.. 159 


Of the smaller Morals 






169 


Of Rhyme and Rhythm 






.. 181 


Of Zoilism 






.. 190 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



Of Creeds 

Of the future of Animals . . . 
Of Happiness together or alone 
A National Hymn for Harvest 
A National Dirge in Trouble 
A National Psalm of Victory 
The Seven Sayings 
Final ... 



page 

212 

223 

2 54 
271 

278 

286 

2 93 

307 



PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

THIRD SERIES. 



Preamble, 



Again, toward the eventide of life, I touch 

that rhythmic harp 
Struck by the son of Sirach twenty centuries 

agone ; 
Again, I ask thy favour, — thou, my brother 

or my sister, 
Not as a stranger might but now a friend 

of thirty years ; 

Again, I canvass for my words thy patience 

and thy love, 

B 



2 Preamble. 

Again, I show my thoughts to thee, for 

sympathy and kindness : 
Thoughts not stolen out of books, nor 

noted day by day, 
But springing fresh beneath my pen, 

unsought and unrestrained; 
Thoughts ever frankly spoken, as from 

brother's heart to heart, 
Regardless of the jibe of fools, and proof 

against their spleen. 
I would away with selfishness; I would 

forswear all vanity ; 
Nor write for praises, but in hope, to do a 

little good ; 
In all sincerity and singleness to work my 

Master's work, 
While yet the day of life is lent, with 

leisure health and grace. 



Preamble. 



Once more then after thirty years, I come, 

O friend and brother, 
Bringing my modern thoughts to thee in 

their antique disguise : 
This Eastern garb is somewhat, if its 

ancient quaintness help 
To catch thy kind attention, and to win 

thy willing mind. 
In those thirty years, a generation is 

entombed, 
And wondrous changes have there been, 

and much of good and evil ; 
And death hath made old friendships rare, 

and many have been the wrecks 
From storm to storm as some we knew 

broke on the rocks of life ; 

B 2 



4 Preamble. 

And thankfulness and penitence and charity 
and faith, 

These well become us all, O friends, remem- 
bering the past. 

We have been through seas of sorrows, we 

have traversed a whole wilderness of 

trial, 
Many sins and cares and pains and pleasures 

have we met. 
Often in the shadow of death, often in the 

valley of weeping, 
And rarely now and then have basked full 

in the prosperous sun : 
Danger and adventure have been ours, 

good providences and strange accidents, 
And well indeed if heinous sin hath not 

bedimmed our light; 



Preamble. 5 

Slander bespattered us at times, at times 

fair fame caressed us, 
And now disease had brought us down, 

or strong health set us up; 
Many disappointments and misfortunes, yet 

manifold blessings and advancements, 
Much was ours of grievous loss, yet some 

good gains withal : 
Thousands have fallen at our side, slain in 

the battle of life, 
Or dropping, scarcely missed, to death, 

through Mirza's visioned bridge: 
And still we stand to fight the fight, if 

faint — thank God, pursuing, 
Still is life with half its hopes and all its 

mercies ours: 
Therefore gratitude and penitence, faith 

and hope and charity, 



6 Preamble. 

These well become us each, O friends, 
reviewing all that past. 

To teach thy neighbour clearly, search 
thine own heart deeply, 

Search impartially, with prayer, in humble- 
ness of mind ; 

And from the bottom of that well thou 
shalt draw up truth, 

Which, quickened by the breath of day, 
may flow to others' good. 

Each man's heart is a mine unworked, 
and all are rich in metal, 

Silver or copper, arsenic or iron, mer- 
cury lead or gold; 

More is beneath than can ever be 
brought up, veins to be wrought for 
ages, 



ream 



ble. 7 



When the life of Eternity beginneth, 

after the death , of Time. 
No man knoweth his own wealth, his 

mightiness for evil or for good, 
No man hath guessed his capabilities, 

nor how he shall expand; 
No one ever writ the half, nor spoke 

the tithe he thinketh, 
Never yet was mind exhausted, nor one 

heart dug out. 
We are here for an hour to catch a fated 

bent, and then, direct or crooked, 
The arrow speedeth ever, as first aimed 

and shot by us, 
That arrow of Existence, our own un- 

endable career, 
Ever flying to its mark, the Infinite of 

joy or sorrow. 



8 Preamble. 

And every man's experience, is a lesson 
due to all, 

For no one ever yet was taught of 
Heaven for selfish ends. 

The trials and temptations thou hast seen, 
thy battles lost or won, 

Were meant not for thyself alone, to 
strengthen only thee ; 

The story of thy wreck in life, or winning 
the Fair Havens 

Shall be the chart of safety, to thy neigh- 
bour for his bark : 

Then say not thou so bitterly, — self- 
shewing is self-seeking, — 

A fool's heart is worn upon his sleeve, for 
every daw to peck at: 

No! there is a generous egotism, — in 
wisdom genially uttered, 



Preamble. 9 

Frank and honest plainness, which no true 

man will despise. 
In no self-seeking doth the Christian 

analyse his heart, 
In no self-praising can he show the spots 

and wrinkles there; 
A servant, he hath much to do, and little 

time for doing; 
A soldier, duty is his end, with courage 

for the way ; 
A man among his brother-men, he prizeth 

well their love, 
And scorning no one's censure, asketh no 

one's praise. 



A book is in no sort like a cable, to be 
judged by its weakest inch, 



I o Preamble. 

A chain to be condemned throughout, 
because some links are faulty; 

Neither as a hedge nor as a wall, to be 
measured for its usefulness by gaps, 

But generously, honourably, fairly, averaging 
this and that: 

If the tree have any well-ripe fruits, 
produce them for the banquet, 

But let the sourlings be, a good tree beareth 
both: 

It is the vice of our scribes to magnify both 
best and worst 

In books they think to help by praise, or 
hope to harm by censure: 

And some will read before they judge, other 
some will judge without the reading, 

Fairness guiding those, party and pre- 
judice these; 



Preamble, 1 1 

Yet is your confessor of no party ; 

neither side can claim him ; 
High, or low, narrow, or broad, — in all are 

good and evil ; 
The Patriot, as the Christian, is found of 

every sect, 
And moderate men will bid God-speed 

to Patriots and to Christians; — 
And, for the matter of prejudice, none 

asketh other than strict justice 
After honest diligence to learn an author's 

mind; 
But books will live, and books will die, 

alone for their deservings, 
And no man's fame is made or marred, 

by other than himself: 
While, for better things than fame, good- 
doing and glad conscience, 



1 2 Preamble. 

A champion, shod in steel with these, can 

kick against the pricks; 
Good doing, tokened by your love, O 

world of unseen friends, 
Glad conscience, stablished in Thy grace, 

my Saviour and my God, 



( i3 ) 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 



Happy art thou O son, if thou hast walked 

innocently, 
Baffling corruption in thy heart, and 

battling the temptations of the world ; 
Happy, if thy present is not clouded with 

the past, — nor miserably shadowed on 

the future, 
Happy among men art thou, if hitherto thy 

converse hath been innocent : 
If there be none of all thy brethren whom 

thy greed hath wronged, 
None to complain of thee for meannesses, 

none to charge thee with injustice, 



14 Of Innocence and Guilt. 

None whom thy vindictiveness hath 
slandered, none by thee maligned, 

No poor cruelly entreated, no rich fraudu- 
lently spoiled ; 

If there be none of all thy sisters, whom 
thy passion hath betrayed, 

No foul retrospects of folly, no dark con- 
sciousness of crime, 

No young unguilty face, to dim thy 
remembrance with her tears, 

No lower outcast claiming thee, hereafter, 
soul and body : 

If to thyself thou hast been true, if thou 
hast been mindful of thy God, 

Nor ever slept, nor ever woke, without a 
prayer to Him, 

If thou hast at all times done thy best, 
bearing trials well, 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 15 

If thou hast smiled at slander, and been 

humble under praise, 
If thou hast diligently used thy talents and 

occasions, 
If through good doing here, thou hast laid 

up treasure elsewhere, 
Happy art thou, and honourable ; yea thy 

heart is peaceful, 
Pleasant is thy sleep by night, and sweet 

is thy complacency by day. 
Truly, an innocent life bringeth its own 

rewardings, 
Truly, within and not without, is that 

better heaven. 



Yet, art thou still in peril, and hast need 
of grace, my son, 



1 6 Of Innocence and Guilt. 

To keep thee pure as now thou art, and 

save thee from a fall : 
Yea, thou hast need of Angels, ministering 

good, 
Thankfulness, humility, and fear; praying 

and watching always. 
For, this very hour, the Philistines may be 

upon thee, Samson, 
Delilah may mesh thee in her hair, and 

steal from thee thy treasure, — 
Or some evil covetousness stamp thee 

Ananias, 
Or thy soul may drain that poison, spiritual 

pride. 
Dread thine utter weakness, trust the 

strength of God, 
Regard thy purer past only as a gift of 

mercy, 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 17 

Kindly raise the fallen, considering thine 

own corruption, 
Look in fear upon the guilt that might 

have been thine own, 
Be humble, that is safety; in thankfulness 

be humble, 
And fling from thy clean hand the viper of 

self-righteousness. 



And wretched art thou, O son, — though 

rich and gorged with pleasures, 
Though rank, and wealth, and favour set 

thee high above thy kind, 
Yea, most miserable art thou, if guilt is as 

a cancer on thy conscience, 
In memory of evil deeds, wilful and unre- 

pented : 



1 8 Of Innocence and Guilt. 

If thy selfish falsehood hath broken loving 

hearts, 
If thy coarser passions riot in the mysteries 

of sin, 
If thou hast stolen and defrauded, if thou 

hast harmed through malice, 
If thou hast secretly indulged, or openly 

professed pollution : 
Yea, thou hast seeds of sorrow planted in 

thy heart 
Enough to make its borders sad for ever 

and for ever ; 
Yea, there is need of nothing else, nor fire 

nor worm undying, 
To make the sinner's punishment eternal 

and supreme ; 
His conscious soul aflame with all those 

burning memories, 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 19 

This is enough for vengeance in whatever 

world : 
Here, sharp terrors of discovery, and the 

pale faces of his victims, 
Remorse, disease, and self contempt, despair 

for earth and heaven ; 
Hereafter, all the past become a terrible 

present, 
Never to end and never to mend, without 

one hope of better ; 
Only misery to feed on, memory of chances 

gone, 
Ruined good, and squandered talents, all 

one bitter chaos : 
Such are the wages of the guilty, hourly 

paid him here, 

And ever more to be the price of all his evil 

doings ; 

c 2 



20 Of Innocence and Guilt. 

Now, to darken every noon, and frighten 

every night, 
Then, to make eternal life an endless death 

to him. 

Yet, is there hope, O brother, — still in life 

is hope, — 
For He that giveth one more day, gave it 

for repentance. 
Now, in this blest hour, put aside thy sins, 
Lay thy guilt on Christ, the scapegoat for 

all evil : 
If this word, sincerely uttered, reacheth thee 

in solitude, 
Put it not aside, but lift thy heart in 

momentary prayer; 
Who knoweth, whether thy Good Angel 

be not now beside thee, 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 21 

And did not the Father of the prodigal fall 

on his neck and kiss him ? 
If thou art in company with others, be not 

ashamed of Truth, 
Seek to be alone awhile, and gaze upon her 

face: 
This shall be a day to be remembered, the 

dawn of happy good, 
The breaking of thy fetters, and the death 

to all thy fears : 
Whatever may have been the past, however 

black and hideous, 
It hath a present cure, repentance with 

amendment. 
Be just in restitution where thou canst, 

confessing with discreetness, 
And prove not so unjust to God, as to 

despair of grace ; 



22 Of Innocence and Guilt. 

Guilt is pardoned at the word, that Heaven 

waiteth long to hear, 
And pardoned guilt is that New Life, the 

next akin to innocence. 



But, there are strange differences in guilt, 

as there is infinity toward innocence, 
This last leading up to God, and those 

being footsteps in corruption : 
And many causes of all kinds are leaven to 

the twain, 
Birth, education, circumstance, the mysteries 

of partial Providence. 
Far be it from any man to judge, ignorant 

and full of prejudice, 
For the race is run with various weights, 

that have to be allowed for. 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 23 

An orphan outcast of the streets, bred in 

vice and cruelty, 
Whose only teachings have been theft, 

lying, lust and baseness, 
With nought but evil round him, and his 

mother's taint within, 
Some reprobate father's image, stunted in 

mind and body, — 
How to compare him as to guilt, with 

another nurtured in piety, 
Carefully taught and tended, come of a 

stock of saints, 
With every help for either world, health 

and wealth and kindness, 
And leanings to the good and pure through 

twenty generations ? 
O Man, leave judgments to the Judge : it 

needeth an infinity of wisdom 



24 Of Innocence and Guilt. 

To set those balances aright, which bless 
or ban a soul. 



Yet there is a marvellous diversity among 

the characters of men, 
Heights of aspiration, and depths of degra- 
dation, with infinite breadths upon the 

level : 
The many are read at a glance, neither 

very good nor very evil, 
Changeable to either sort, and kindly 

weakly natured ; 
The few, of infinite capacities, bent toward 

right or wrong, 
So that thou shalt not easily gauge the saint 

or the sinner before thee : 
There are higher heights in the spiritual 

life, than thy thought may reach, 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 25 

There are deeper depths in wickedness, 

than common men can fathom ; 
In either the immortal is perceived, the 

strong flight of that spirit is begun, 
To wing its way for ever, through all good 

or evil worlds. 
O Man, set steadily thy will to catch the 

breeze of Heaven, 
Nor luff that iron rudder to the Maelstrom 

of the Lost; 
It is given to thy nature to be great, an 

awful Immortality, 
And in thy hand is placed betimes its 

happiness or woe. 
Needs must there be a separation, dividing 

the evil from the good ; 
Worlds of retribution and reward, as worlds 

of resurrection in experience : 



26 Of Innocence and Guilt. 

So long as consciousness surviveth, so long 

shall memory be keen ; 
And there is no crueller avenger, no 

tenderer rewarder than Remembrance. 
The Muses were daughters of Mnemosyne ; 

and Night the mother of Memory 
Had likewise the Furies for her daughters, 

Remorse and bitter Shame. 
Even with pardoned guilt, the scars will 

ache though healed : 
But innocence hath no such scars, no 

aching if no healing : 
To be well-forgiven may be joy, so to be 

redeemed from punishment, 
Yet must that spirit recollect, painfully 

what evil it hath worked : 
And there is a cloud upon its brow that 

never darkened innocence, 



Of Innocence and Guilt. 27 

Whose crown of glory is not dimmed by 
memories of sin. 



O youth, O man, O fair maid or matron, 
Keep innocency, — nothing less ensureth 

peace at the last : 
Or, if utterly thou hast lost it, let no rash 

despair 
Provoke thee to be reckless of the Grace 

that yearneth to restore thee : 
Haste with penitence and prayer : all have 

need of mercy ; 
All may ask it, if they will, and have it 

for the asking. 



( *8 ) 



Of this World's Age. 



God is truth, God is light, God is right 

and reason ; 
He cannot darken nor deceive, nor cheat 

the sons of men : 
That which He graveth on the rock, as 

that which He writeth in the Book, 
Leadeth not astray, is not dangerous to seek, 

nor difficult to find. 
Fear not thou, meek Christian, the flare 

from Reason's torch 
Illumining the caverns of the Earth, and 

searching secrets there ; 



Of this World's Age. 29 

Be not ashamed, O Philosopher, but boldly 

show thy proofs 
That mother Earth is old beyond all human 

computation ; 
That infinite periods are needed for her 

mountains made of shells, 
For her saltmines dried from ancient seas, 

for her ores and fossil forests, 
For the monsters living through their 

centuries on continents of mud, 
Millions of years ere Adam was, with Eden 

for his home. 
As leaves of some old book, inscribed with 

unknown characters, 
The strata, folios on folios, testify to bye- 
gone histories : 
Whether in the page-like slates, and schales 

and films of stone, 



30 Of this World's Age, 

Each with its beauteous illustration, ferns 
and flies and fishes, 

Or in the miles of massy chalk, or swath- 
ing thicknesses of clay, 

Or granite where all life was fused by force 
of primal fires, 

Or lower still where water, in the green 
Laurentian lime, 

Preserved to our microscopic wonder, the 
first-born atomies of life, — 

Everywhere, is manifestly written in cha- 
racters that all may read 

A vast antiquity for Earth scarce shorter 
than a past Eternity. 



Moses, the wisest among men, taught by 
the God of wisdom, 



Of this World's Age. 3 1 

Knew and spake of old the truths we now 

discover : 
In the beginning of all sons, myriads of 

eras back, 
In the beginning with the Word, who both 

was God and with God, 
In that beginning of beginnings, He created 

all things, 
The suns as they stand, and their planets as 

they roll, the universe, the Heavens 

and the Earth. 
What need hath man to learn the history 

of all those ages ? 
Why should his teacher of religion 

heap him with the chaos of their 

facts ? 
Tribes of most ancient lower-life over- 
swarmed the desolated globe, 



32 Of this World's Age. 

Preyed on each other and were whelmed, 
by earthquakes, deluges, volcanoes ; 

In a beautiful series of improvement, higher 
succeeding to the humbler, 

As if the choice of Wisdom was Perfection 
by degrees : 

Each wave of life congealing was a step- 
ping-stone beyond, 

Until they bridged that ancient sea with 
monumental death. 

But why encumber our minds with lore so 
slightly worth 

When in man's little year he scarce hath 
time for duties ? 

It were wise to leave riddles in the rocks, 
for science to solve thereafter, 

But not to vex an infant race, with themes 
beyond its ken : 



Of this World's Age. $$ 

So, when this everlasting scroll, that God 

hath fashioned all things, 
Was first and once, as by an Angel, flung 

across the universe of matter, 
The spirit of the Book, and of the World, 

commandeth holy silence, 
And the gulf of innumerable ages is leapt 

by Revelation. 
Era followed era, while Earth lay ripening 

for man, 
And multitudes of living things then served 

their generations : 
The rocks and giant hills are full of fossil 

forms, 
And half the crust of Earth is built of 

microscopic shells : 
Dragons fattened in the slime, while forests, 

matting overhead, 



34 Of this World's dge. 

Drained, from premundane sunshine, our 

brightest coloured tints : 
And grinding cataracts of ice, and tilts of 

land and water 
Many times wrought destruction on those 

pristine tribes of Earth ; 
Often the creation was renewed, standing 

on the ruins of a former, 
Often, by fire or by flood, the catastrophes 

swept on to desolation. 
Then, after many many ages, when earth 

stood rich in soils, 
Laden with ores and fuel, stocked and stored 

with wealth, 
Fitted, at God's behest, to bring forth food 

for man, 
And baited with secrets for his intellect as 

well as with jewels for his pride, 



Of this World's Age. $$ 

Then, after some more crashing ruin, when 

the globe was void and formless, 
Dashed into fragments as a potsherd, and 

empty of all life, 
Then, the Spirit moved, on the face of 

drowning waters, 
And God commanded order, crystallizing 

from those ruins. 
Thus our Cosmos grew ; He willed it, day 

by day, 
(Why not a week of days, as easy as an 

instant or an seon ?) 
And, in harmonious succession, rising from 

the lowest to the highest, 
All our humbler creatures, and their mother 

Earth, 
Waited ready for their lord, the man whom 

God created. 

D 2 



36 Of this World's Age. 



Adam is our date, — as we are Adam's 

children ; 
From Adam's birth six thousand years have 

well nigh sped on Earth. 
To Adam's race alone, the Word by Moses 

spake, 
And God was pleased Himself to live a 

very Son of Eve. 
It may be there were earlier tribes, in some 

premundane eras, 
Tribes analogous with man, but not of 

Adam's race : 
Skulls in the sandstone, or the chalk, or the 

lias may yet be gathered, 
To scatter sagest theory, but not harm 

foolish faith : 



Of this World* s Age. 37 

Hitherto nothing hath appeared, beyond 

some faint remains 
Of savage men, who dwelt in caves, before 

our Noah's flood, 
Battling wretchedly with beasts, extinct since 

that last deluge, 
And downward sunk in misery, a whole 

degraded race, 
Children of Cain scattered over earth, curst 

for their father's sake, 
With his black mark set on them over all, 

as witnessed to this hour ; 
Even in the Ark of refuge, the wife of 

Ham was one, 
And so, indelibly for ever, was multiplied 

that ancient stain. 
Perchance, if any so-called men were in 

those old creations, 



38 Of this World's Age. 

God may have raised their bodies, in some 

earlier resurrection : 
No trace would then be found, saving of 

the lower animals ; 
While the absence of their lord proclaimed 

his higher calling : 
But, what mattereth it to us, the new made 

race of Man, 
The dynasty of Adam, formed to fill that 

ancient throne ? 
From him, through a thousand generations, 

God doth give all good, 
Commanding duties, promising rewards, 

and stirring hopes and fears ; 
For which our privilege is gratitude, our 

daily strength is Faith, 
Our aim a nobler sphere, and this old 

world's great future. 



Of this World's Age. 39 



Yea: for a bright regeneration is ripening 

for this Earth, 
Its thousand years of days of years, accord- 
ing to the Scripture, 
A year for a day and a day for a year, no 

simple thousand years ; 
Three hundred threescore and five thousand 

make the wondrous sum : 
Then, — and the promise is to us, to us and 

to our children, 
Commencing within a generation that yet 

shall see the end, 
That glorious consummation for the Earth, 

our longed-for age of glory, 
Our holiday of happiness, our Sabbath of 

high praise, 



40 Of this World's Age. 

Shall gladden ail Earth's creatures, the lion 

as the ox, 
The trees of the wood, and the flowers of 

the field, the hills and plains and 

valleys. 



( 4* ) 



Of Circumstance, 



Boast not, O man of much adventure, for 

thou canst compass little, 
Save by steering with the tide, to catch the 

swing of circumstance ; 
Skill and courage are as nought, striving 

against the current, 
But best are shown and used, when with it, 

not against it. 
A wise man watcheth for his chance, to 

seize it on the instant, 
And, to be ready for that chance, must be 

well prepared beforehand : 
Therefore, a diligence in all things is the 

strongest fulcrum of success, 



42 Of Circumstance. 

Therefore the many sided mind is ripe for 
every prize. 



How mightily beyond our power, beyond 

our will or thought 
The force of outer circumstance constraineth 

to obey : 
Yet a man is no straw upon the hurricane ; 

his consciousness is calm ; 
In patience, strength, and prayer he still can 

stem the tempest ; 
Waiting and watching his occasion, self- 
possessed and shrewd, 
He yet may make the vortex serve him not 

enslave him. 
If thou art master of thyself, circumstance 

shall harm thee little ; 



Of Circumstance. 43 

But weakness sloth and sin make men as 

leaves on eddies. 
True, some seeming accident can fell the 

strong man by a blow, 
Decisive and inevitable, to be patiently 

accepted as of Providence ; 
Even if the throne of Palasologus be lost 

through such slight cause, 
Well, — it was the will of Heaven, not the 

whim of chance ; 
Or haply an honest serf, running with the 

crowd of sightseers 
To win a glance at his loved Prince, the 

Russian's Czar and father, 
Blest by happy circumstance, but ready for 

the act 
In loyal heart and daring hand, and kindli- 
ness and honour, 



44 Of Circumstance. 

Stayeth the crime of the assassin ; and 
leapeth into instant fortune 

Hero and darling of his people, ennobled 
and enriched. 

Or haply, in the dead of night, some half- 
mad jealous sister 

Terribly perpetrateth murder upon sleeping 
infant innocence ; 

And the false finger of suspicion pointed at 
the wretched father, 

Ruin swept his home, calumny and hatred 
crushed him, 

And all through evil circumstance, that he 
could not escape : 

Yet had he governed early the wicked way- 
ward daughter, 

Or lived the life of purity, that no ill 
tongue could taint, 



Of Circumstance. 45 

Or frankly and manfully outspoken, quell- 
ing the voice of clamour, 
He, as pitied, not condemned, might have 

overmastered circumstance. 
All things spring of seeds, nothing groweth 

but from roots, 
Even calumnious suspicion is weak against 

strong character : 
And many times an innocent in fact hath 

suffered as a criminal in law- 
Deserving all that penalty, well due to old 
transgressions. 



Wide is the range of circumstance, but nar- 
rower the difference in condition, 

Happiness is measured out, to most, with 
equal hand. 



4-6 Of Circumstance. 

Innocency, rarest among men, — yet some 

there be who keep it, 
Innocency from the great offence, clean life 

with quiet conscience, 
Innocency giveth in all states a double dole 

of happiness, — 
And guilt detracteth from them all the half 

if not the whole. 
Even disease upon her bed, lying there year 

after year, 
Is cheerful and contented, with religion in 

her heart ; 
Even strong health upon his hunter, gallop- 
ing over the uplands, 
Is wretched from his sins, blaspheming as 

he leapt : 
The little workhouse orphan, slave to some 

woman tyrant, 



Of Circumstance. 47 

Singeth at her half-starved toil merrily spite 
of hardship ; 

While yonder highbred beauty, wearied 
with waltzing at the ball, 

Sobbeth on her sofa, envious, piqued, un- 
happy. 

It is not accident of circumstance, but innate 
quality of soul 

That addeth peace or taketh it away, as 
well with the highest as the lowest. 



Many things marvellous to us, until we 

know their causes, 
Justify the government of Providence, with 

those their causes known. 
Sometimes the profligate father hath a pious 

son. 



48 Of Circumstance. 

Driven to such happy contrariety through 

hate of Helot- vice ; 
Sometimes a profligate son shall cheat his 

pious father 
For morals all too stern, and ill-advised 

restraints : 
Guilt shall heap up wealth, if keenness and 

industry be added, — 
And saints must come to poverty, if prudence 

be not theirs ; 
Triumph is not given to the right, if vigour 

be wanting in its champion ; 
And high success may crown the wrong 

through energy and skill. 
Causes win consequents, and laws will 

govern universally, 
Neither are they warped but by a miracle, 

that miracle born of prayer. 



Of Circumstance. 49 

While thou canst, give diligence ; every sort 

of knowledge 
Riseth to the surface in its turn on the 

eddying torrent of life : 
And it is the privilege of genius, energy 

seizing on occasion, 
To use all sorts of knowledge, and make 

them serve its ends. 
I have known a poor school teacher, hus- 
banding his scant leisure, 
Studious of Chinese lore, while many 

mocked his folly ; 
But in due time good circumstance swept 

by, an interpreter was wanted for a 

treaty, 
The Chinese scholar was in quest, and lo ! 

a man ready with his learning ; 



50 Of Circumstance. 

Wealth and fame and fortune came within 

his reach, 
And so well-skilled he gathered wealth and 

fame and fortune. 
As occasion passeth on, if thy hand pluck 

not quickly at its sleeve, 
It walketh away, thy chance is gone, 

because thou wast not ready. 
The soil must be well-dressed, to give the 

seed full growth, 
And for the battle of life, both mind and 

body should be athletes. 
Therefore the aim of education should be 

more to build up character 
Than painfully to store the mind with 

multitude of facts : 
And the training, the discipline, the gram- 
mar, these are ends as well as means ; 



Of Circumstance. 51 

Nerving and establishing the man, for much 

beyond his classics. 
Our youths have Spartan lessons, and grow 

thereby strong and patient ; 
Our maidens throng the Capuan school, for 

vanities and caprice. 
Mindfully, with high conscience, true 

scholars study all things, 
And learn betimes to use aright all weapons 

in all armouries. 
A wise man redeemeth his time, that he 

may improve his chances ; 
Diligence ever winneth reward upon oc- 
casion : 
Never have I seen the statesman, the orator 

poet or preacher, 
To whom his school day lessons came not 

as continual allies. 

E 2 



52 Of Circumstance. 

However wide the field, analogy in all 

things is so perfect, 
No knowledge seemeth unavailable, no toil 

bringeth not its gain. 
Therefore read and mark, and think and 

write for memory, 
Therefore scorn no lore, for all are full of 

uses; 
The student of a shingle beach may find in 

stones true sermons ; 
The watcher of a microscope shall win deep 

wisdom out of monads ; 
He that knoweth to swim can save himself 

or another, 
So earning second lives, by readiness for 

occasion ; 
The linguist, multiplying usefulness, and 

fusing his ideas in other tongues, 



Of Circumstance. 53 

Is fitted both to teach and learn, through 
being well prepared ; 

The musician pleaseth by his skill, philo- 
sophers make rich through science, 

But all must have given diligence, to be 
quick to the call of Circumstance. 



Every one of us getteth his desert, somehow, 

somewhen, somewhere, 
Penalties are earned as surely as rewards, 

pains alike with pleasures : 
No man gathereth grapes of thorns, neither 

figs of thistles ; 
Everything is consequent, and nothing by a 

chance : 
This thy torment of disease, this racking of 

a joint or of a nerve, 



54 Of Circumstance. 

Is due to thine own foolishness, and hath 

been well deserved : 
All things grow of seeds, accident hath no 

real being, 
That we sow we reap, that which is is 

ordered. 



A wise man fitteth into Circumstance, easily 

cheerfully and wholly, 
Even as a globule of quicksilver filleth up 

its any little mould ; 
Instantly adaptable his mind acquiesceth 

contentedly and bravely 
In all the will of Providence, led on by 

Duty's clue : 
For he wotteth well and shrewdly, that, let 

whatever happen, 



Of Circumstance. 55 

Circumstance is the servant, not the master 

of his soul, 
And that, looking still toward Heaven in 

his travail on the earth, 
He is gradually fitted for his place, and the 

work he hath to do. 



( 56 ) 



Of the Starry Heavens. 

" The heavens declare the glory of God, 

and the firmament showeth His handy 

work: 
" One day telleth another, and one night 

proclaimeth to another : 
" There is neither speech nor language, 

where their voices are not heard ; 
" Their sound is gone out through all the 

earth, and their words to the ends of 

the world." 
The Spirit that sang in David, as the Mind 

that preached in Paul, 



Of the Starry Heavens, 57 

Knew and recorded long ago how various 

are the lights of heaven ; 
That there is one glory of the sun and 

another glory of the moon, 
And another glory of the stars, differing 

each from other : 
And now doth modern science but retouch 

that ancient truth, 
Dividing by three-angled glass those glories 

in proportions, 
So that we calculate and prove what Paul 

and David saw, 
And show that the Bible of the saint is 

equally the text-book of the sage. 



O stars, inhabited of angels, worlds of won- 
drous glory, 



58 Of the Starry Heavens. 

That shine in your far stations, flaming 

sentinels of Space, 
How full of mystery and marvel, rich in 

unthought wealth, 
How beauteous and how vast are ye, strange 

islands of the Blest ! 
Walking in these fields by night, with dews 

and solitude around me, 
Or on that rippled shingle, with music in 

the waves, 
I lift my heart up with mine eyes, yearning 

toward the stars, 
Each so different in. glory, all so brilliant 

and enormous, 
Wondering which of them is mine, my 

kingdom of inheritance, 
Claimed through The Heir of all things, 

my Saviour, God and Brother. 



Of the Starry Heavens. 59 

Is there not for each of us his star, as those 

of yore declared, — 
(And old tradition runneth rooted strong in 

earth, like couch,) 
A fated realm for the immortal, made 

co-heir in Christ, 
A waiting throne with its angel here, to 

guard him on the way ? 
Each star beckoneth on to glory, our distant 

twinkling goal, 
Albeit this clay-cold soil of earth may clog 

the wayward feet ; 
Ever are we creeping on in darkness, with 

Duty for a lantern through it all ; 
Ever righting ambushed foes, and God to 

fight for us ; 
Ever do we grope and guess, hoping where 

we cannot see, 



60 Of the Starry Heavens. 

And all our wisdom here the while, is 
walking straight in faith. 



O bright candles of the Lord, searching out 

earth's dark corners, 
Calm witnesses to many deeds that fain 

would hide in night ; 
Alas ! for the evils ye behold, the wrongs 

and harms and sorrows, 
The discords that rush up from us to your 

harmonic sphere ! 
Yea, sinner, cease from sinning, in the sight 

of all these eyes, 
Let them not see thy guilt, for shame, to 

testify far off; 
For thou art watched, O sinner, and thy 

works recorded ; 



Of the Starry Heavens. 61 

Repent, return, and sin no more beneath 
the conscious stars. 



Suns, fixed centres of bright systems, grouped 

with unseen planets, 
All, one universe of globes careering round 

God's Throne, 
How meanly can we estimate the glory and 

high grace 
Hid in some sparkle, twinkling there, ten 

billion leagues away ! 
Possibly, each star-sun is the central heaven 

to its system ; 
Probably, the worlds round each are tried 

and purified as ours ; 
For, matter tendeth to corruption, and 

moral trials unto purity ; 



62 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Exceeding broad are His commandments, 

filling the extremities of Space. 
He spreadeth out the heavens like a curtain, 

woven of many lights, 
A golden tissue of comets' trails, bejewelled 

with set worlds, 
The Great King's robe of glory flowing to 

the footstool of His throne, 
And glittering with its million suns, celestial 

mounts of light. 
Our minds have skill to weigh those 

worlds, to measure out their dis- 

tances, 
To note the nice diversities that tint their 

spectral hues; 
We calculate their structure and their 

elements, haply their creatures and 

their histories, 



Of the Starry Heavens. 63 

And shrewdly from a slenderest hint deduce 
some strong-limbed truth : 

We judge that each, — of three millions we 
can count, and millions more half-seen, 

The clouds of diamond-dust around Je- 
hovah's chariot wheels, — 

Is vaster than thought's vastest, brighter 
than imagination's brightest, 

And peopled with glad creatures, all perfect 
in their kind, 

Of novel forms in beauty, shapes and senses 
unconceived, 

With other lights in colour, and other tones 
in music, 

Strange pleasures, and new virtues, incom- 
municable thoughts, 

And powers we cannot guess, capacities, in- 
tensities, expansions, 



64 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Pertaining to exalted natures, rich in glorious 

gifts, 
And nobler in themselves than we, as 

creatures nearer God. 

Yet, are your thrones, O some among the 

stars, waiting for their human kings, 
Heirs to fill those highest seats, made void 

through war in heaven. 
With many of you, each is vacant of its 

head, — some down-hurled son of 

glory — 
And ready for a substituted chief, a brother 

of the Christ, 
A ransomed child of Adam, made through 

suffering perfect, 
Lower than the angels at his first, but 

higher than them all hereafter. 



Of the Starry Heavens. 6$ 

Each star is a mighty kingdom, tributary 

to the central Sun, 
And stood, or swerved, in loyalty, when 

Lucifer tempted changes ; 
In some the pristine rulers, fallen from their 

pure seraphic state, 
Have left those Canaan cities to be won by 

Israel's host; 
In some they stood sublime, Abdiels among 

the sons of Belial, 
Gaining the regalia for themselves, Arch- 
angels though not men ; 
Angels stood and angels fell ; as men may 

fall or stand, 
God's darling youngest-born, His Benjamins 

and Davids. 



F 



66 Of the Starry Heavens. 

There be globes, near of kin to our world, 
wanderers, dependents on the sun, 

So vast and rare and light, we may guess 
them spiritual mansions ; 

That outer quaternion of planets, flying in 
a wider orbit, 

The so-styled Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus 
and furthest Neptune : 

These, each larger than this earth, by a 
thousand times and more, 

Weigh yet as lightness for their bulk, seem- 
ingly less substantial. 

Have such worlds expanded, balancing alike 
for density, 

But swollen as to gaseous globes, fitted for 
some half-material beings ? 

Have these four, purified by fire, attained 
their incorruptible perfection ; 



Of the Starry Heavens, 67 

The like whereof we look for Earth, for 
Venus, Mercury and Mars ? 

And is it that the lost huge planet, shattered 
into ninety provinces, 

Asteroid-orbs that sweep midway between 
near Mars and Jupiter, 

Burst and demolished for its sin, is a warn- 
ing to our grosser worlds, 

Now looking equally to judgement, and 
waiting for a baptism of fire ? 

That huge and ruined world, was it once 
the realm of Lucifer 

Prince of the powers of the air, since fallen 
through ambition ? 

And are the shattered fragments of his 
kingdom homes for evil angels, 

Flung down to earth in meteors, and 

troubling our skies with pestilence, — 

F 2 



68 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Wandering stars, soon to be put out, in 

blackness of darkness for ever ? 
For behold, — that devastated globe, vast as 

Jupiter or Neptune, 
May have been comet-struck for sin just 

before man was made ; 
And its degraded monarch have striven thus 

to seize 
The new weak creature's kingdom for his 

glory and revenges. 



And for those better four, flowering in 

season from their roots, 
Each hath grown to its millenium, and 

won that seon of its glory ; 
Each is now the happy home of beings 

purified from matter, 



Of the Starry Heavens. 69 

Having passed, long eras since, through 

fiery ordeals to perfection. 
Then, as for our humbler four, Mars, 

Earth, Mercury, and Venus, 
Now we stand for illustration set before 

the universe of worlds, 
Showing that earlier phase, the hour of 

sin and trial, 
Homely in Time's working-dress before 

our Sabbath suit ; 
But meant to be hereafter clothed-upon and 

grown to be fit heavens for their children, 
Wide enough for all the generations of 

all creatures born therein. 
Earth (and those near planets in their 

season, at intervals of million ages,) 
May swell and ripen in the fire, when its 

elements shall melt with fervent heat ; 



70 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Expanded thus as Jupiter, magnified some 

thirteen hundred times 
Yet with its equipoise unaltered, being in 

its density the same, 
Cleansed by that baptism of fire, as once 

washed clean by water, 
Made an ethereal palace for holier ran- 
somed creatures, 
Earth then would thus be large enough, 

the heritage for all her children, 
Children of every class, the humblest as 

the highest, 
Not only man, but all his serfs, degraded 

through his sin, 
Innocents who yet shall share his blessing 

in Salvation. 



Of the Starry Heavens. 71 

Comets, enormous and imponderable, spheres 

of burning vapour, 
Flying on your fiery track with more than 

lightning speed, 
Darted from every point by thousands, 

mesh of tangled threads 
Shot from the depths of space, as spinning 

star to star, 
Are ye then electric shuttles, weaving warp 

and woof 
Of light and life throughout the universe, 

travelling from suns to planets ? 



Moons, struck off as at a tangent from 
the sides of new-made worlds, 

Slumbering, as slept Adam, before his fall 
came nigh, 



y 2 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Are ye not outcast satellites, possibly sad 

homes for evil, 
Exiled from those brighter spheres, where 

good alone may dwell ? 
The rings that girdle Saturn, the orbs that 

float round Jupiter, 
These may be the prisons for the convicts 

of those worlds : 
And what then, set aside for us, is yonder 

globe of cinders, 
Blistered with heat, or glaciered with cold, 

on either hideous hemisphere, — 
Our lamp of night, our witness to most 

sin, thefts, and lusts, and murders, 
Our neighbouring shore of burning cones, 

airless, empty, waterless, — 
Goddess of the worst idolatries, witchcrafts, 

crimes, and cruelties, 



Of the Starry Heavens. 73 

Hecate, Asharoth, Diana, our pale and 

guilty Moon ? 
May not this be thus the prisonhouse, 

where evil shall be pent, 
When, concrete in ill bodies, sin is driven 

out of Earth ? 



Meteors, — who knoweth, who can guess, 

your various inexplicable natures ? 
Or, fragments of that shattered world, 

aerolite morsels of its provinces ? 
Or haply, lava-masses from the mountains 

of the moon ? 
Or bubble worlds of gas? or ministering 

flames of fire ? 
Or wandering powers of the air ? or young 

stars shot beyond their orbits ? 



74 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Or strange concretions of matter, collected 
by atoms on the firmament ? 

Or globes of electric light, fired by an 
atmospheric touch ? 

Who knoweth, who can guess ? — In beauti- 
ful majestic slowness 

Now, like a moon, a meteor's arch will 
span the summer sky, 

Then with a burst of lustre will quench the 
common starlight, 

Leaving heaven by contrast black, before 
our startled eyes ; 

Now, like a fiery hail across autumnal 
clouds 

The meteors rush and crackle, like a sleet 
of arrows, 

Or burst on high and hurl below hot 
masses of strange metal, 



Of the Starry Heavens. 75 

As shot from lunar mortars, and with 
thunder of artillery. 



Yea ; how lightly by us all are the wonders 

of the firmament considered ; 
Marvels every night, by grovelling man 

unnoted : 
Yet the most ancient of all books, most read 

and by all nations 
Equally and freely as a universal tongue, is 

yonder starlit heaven. 
The wise Chaldaean, and the shepherd of 

Judsea, thought far more than we 
Of what those characters might mean, 

which God hath writ in suns : 
They guessed at much we know, and long 

ago have travelled for themselves 



j6 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Among the stars in spirit, as Will might 

give them wings. 
And still that silent sermon is preached to 

us each by night 
Whispering, come up hither, we can show 

you wonders. 
Who heedeth ? even heeding, who doth 

not idly gossip names, 
Ursa, Orion, and the Pleiades, nursery tales 

and figures ? — 
Lo, it is the universe thou scannest, half 

the wealth of God, 
His wisdom, and His power, and where 

His honour dwelleth, 
Creations inconceivable, exquisitely poised 

and ordered, 
Full of hallowed harmonies and glorious 

evermore, 



Of the Starry Heavens. 77 

Worlds to which earth is but a millet-seed, 

— suns so much vaster than our sun 
That numbers fail to show us of how 

little count it is: 
The star we name Alcyone, centre of all 

these systems, 
Is a mass as of a hundred million suns, 

our sun making half a million earths. 
Yet, Earth, with all its littleness, is the 

spot which Heaven's King 
Chose in His infinite humility, to favour 

as the greatest, 
Selected for that drama, whereat all the 

worlds are wondering, 
Salvation through incarnate God, and 

glory born of sorrow: 
And man, poor victim of that sorrow, is 

yet to be the co-heir of that glory, 



78 Of the Starry Heavens. 

Meanwhile groping in the dark, and crying 
like an infant for the dawn; 

Still, with a mind to rise to God, a tongue 
to speak His praise, 

A heart to give Him love for love, a soul 
to live with Him for ever! 



( 79 ) 



Of Probabilities. 



Before all things, God was probable, the 
first and the greatest Probability, 

One self-existing source of Life, the solitary- 
seed of all creation: 

That He should be good was probable, for 
evil tendeth to decay, 

Neither subsisteth of itself, but is only the 
corruption of a better : 

That He should be all mighty, all wise, 
all merciful, all just, 

Would be certainties of One Great Good, 
eternally without competitor: 



80 Of Probabilities. 

Yet would His benevolence forbid a sullen 

and an isolated oneness, 
And so a plurality of Persons would be 

likely in that Essence: 
Thus taking counsel with Himself, in equal 

harmonious companionship 
He should, everlastingly beneficent, have 

willed the happy presence of His peers. 
And these should be Three in one, a 

Trinity, neither more nor fewer, 
The likeliest number for society, to last as 

a partnership of friends. 
It were probable that one name should 

stand the Primal Father, 
And that another should be hailed the 

Everlasting Son, 
And that the Spirit of these twain, eternally 

united, 



Of Probabilities. 81 

Should shine the lightsome living Bond, of 
God, that Great Triune : 

Were it more probable that God, a non- 
affectioned Unit 

Should choose eternal solitude, unsympa- 
thetic Self, — 

Nor rather elect as His vast happiness a 
gloriously consorted Essence, 

Equal, in three united Friends who live 
and love as one? 



So then, that Grandest Probability, of God 
and His attributes and Persons, 

Is hinted as an aid to faith, though scarce a 
proof to doubt. 

And for that objection in thy thoughts, of 
some antagonist evil, 



82 Of Probabilities. 

Some seemingly eternal opposite hindering 

eternal good, 
Consider was it probable or not, that crea- 
tures be imperfect, 
Or faultless in perfections, and thus equalled 

with their Maker ? 
And if imperfect and allowed free space for 

worse or better, 
Better, with grace given from above, or 

worse, that grace withheld, 
(Withheld from no caprice, no lack of large 

Benevolence, 
But urged by deep good cause for the 

greater blessing of Creation,) 
The creature thus might fall, his good might 

grow corrupted, 
His powers decayed, his health diseased, his 

moral brightness darkened, 



Of Probabilities. 83 

And so should sin and evil, concretes not 

utter abstracts, 
Cling, as if native parasites, to creatures 

less than perfect. 



But if a fall were probable, thus from the 
nature of matter, 

What were the next high probability ex- 
pectable from God ? 

His grace would plan, His skill invent, a 
scheme of full recovery, 

Whereby the universe of intellect might 
learn and love Him better. 

Himself would be the creature, Himself 
would bear the penalty, 

Himself, as suffering in that creature, should 
lift it to Himself. 

G 2 



84 Of Probabilities. 

So should He take into His Being, nearer 

to the Triune Essence, 
A lost and won Creation, made only all 

the happier from its grief. 



And look to the details of our Fall : death 

was not first for man ; 
But reigned in old creations, asons before 

Adam. 
And when the Maker willed, and our great 

forefather came 
Full aged monarch of the world, to people 

and to rule it, 
The simplest test, an apple, was given for 

obedience, and he fell ; 
Yearning for knowledge as for good, the 

tempted novice failed. 



Of Probabilities. 85 

And so the second Adam should die that 
self- same hour, 

Having lived what the first had overleapt, 
some thirty years and three. 

There seemed a probability herein that 
Christ should fill that sum, 

Infant, youth, and man, antedating full- 
grown Adam. 

And how should He be born but as of 

miracle ? and wherefore should not 

Eve who sinned 
See honour given to her sex through highly 

favoured Mary ? 
It were likely that God's great grace should 

glorify transgressing woman, 
Therefore was the Virgin overshadowed by 

the Spirit of all Life. 



86 Of Probabilities. 

And how should He die but as of sacrifice ? 

innocent, the conqueror of death, 
The martyred priest of truth hung between 

earth and heaven, 
Preaching there with outstretched arms to 

angels and to men, 
Victim to His own great justice, and the 

outcast of the world. 
Thus was the Gospel fully probable : and 

all that ever happened 
Equally in Providence and grace to the 

well-enlightened mind 
Would seem to be probable and fit, neither 

should have happened otherwise; 
For God had ordered every mean and cer- 
tified its end. 



Of Probabilities. 87 

It was likely that a Mahomet should rise, 

forcing religion by the sword, 
Likely that Rome should graft the papal 

on the pagan, 
Likely that a Luther should restore the 

purity of faith, 
Likely that differing sects should slay one 

another in Jerusalem : 
That England should be Freedom's refuge, 

as a distant outpost island, 
And thence should be great among the 

nations, from her ships, her colonies, 

and commerce ; 
That hardship should energize the North, 

that luxury should enervate the South, 
That the East, decaying from old age, 

should be servant to the strong young 

West; 



88 Of Probabilities. 

And that, as a planet by itself, America 
should grow and prosper 

Vaster and mightier than all those older 
dynasties and empires. 

And so of most things else ; enlightened by 
their issues, 

We note them well-foreshadowed in their 
likelihoods to be : 

And 1 judge that a prophet might arise, 
keen in unassisted reason, 

Nor needing higher inspiration than a deep- 
read knowledge of mankind, 

"Who might deduce the future from inspec- 
tion of the past, 

Gathering from likelihood and cause all 
consequents to come. 



( 3 9 ) 



Of Scripture and Science. 



A book of revelation for the fallen, to lead 

us back to good, 
(Wherefrom through a thousand generations 

we all have gone astray,) 
The book that had to speak of God, of 

souls, and hell, and heaven, 
In utterance from the pious of all ages, 

announcing religion and redemption, 

How could it turn from its great end, to 

deal with trivial things, 
Our lesser themes of science, the temporal 

instead of the eternal ? 



90 Of Scripture and Science. 

Wherein should we desire for our minds 
playthings to gladden curiosity, 

And not rather for our hearts the nourish- 
ment of spiritual good ? 

It were beneath the dignity, it were beside 
the object, 

It were derogation from the Bible, should it 
stoop to be the manual of science. 

Moreover, pride is to be humbled, — and 
knowledge pufFeth up; 

The loftiness of man must be brought low, 
by innermost conviction and conversion; 

Affections grovelling down to earth our 
God would raise and purify, 

And cure man's moral cancer by the 
Gospel of his Love : 

So then, let Reason not expect, that the 
grand revelation of Religion 



Of Scripture and Science. 91 

Will be liberal in answers to the questions 
our intellect would ask of Nature ; 

Let us hope it rather rich unto salvation, 
in thoughts that lead to glory, 

A feast of wine upon the lees for souls who 
thirst for Grace. 



Yet, whensoever the Great Teacher might 

touch with His skirts in passing 
The barren sands of science that edge His 

narrow way, 
He should for morality show truth, not 

countersigning falsehood, 
Making it manifest He knoweth, more 

than he will turn aside to tell ; 
Truth, not pedantically exact, — the sun 

may rise and set, 



92 Of Scripture and Science. 

He may speak of the ends of the earth, He 

may tell of the windows of heaven ; 
But, as in the miracle of Joshua, proving 

that if earth stood still 
The moon, not less than the sun, must 

stop in due obedience to that mandate ; 
Truth, incidentally declaring He hath made 

the round world so strong, 
Showing earth a sphere self-poised, and 

not a long flat plain ; 
He may tell of Adam's race, the redeemed 

and favoured family, 
But leave quite unrecorded whether there 

were other sorts of Man : 
Moses may teach us in the Genesis how 

earth was re-established in Order, 
But he need not touch Old Matter, nor the 

ages of pre-existing life ; 



Of Scripture and Science. 93 

These things are written in the stones, 

for reason at its leisure to search 

out, 
But what is written in the Book is a 

searching proper for the spirit : 
Nature, as pictured on the Bible, is simply 

recorded in appearance, 
The sun may rejoice to run his course, 

the heavens may drop down dew ; — 
Albeit the dew ariseth, albeit the sun stand 

still, 
Even a philosopher unblamed will use 

those common phrases : 
But ofttimes hints of higher knowledge 

are dropped as by accident in Scrip- 
ture, 
Testifying even to this hour that the Bible 

is before the age. 



94 Of Scripture and Science. 

He stretcheth out the north over the empty 

space, and hangeth the world upon 

nothing ; 
Here is a glimpse at polar tilts, and their 

magnetic bearing : 
We read about rivers of oil, and oil sucked 

out of the rock, — 
The latest of discoveries with us, but known 

to Job and Moses : 
Behemoth and Leviathan are chronicled, 

as close in contiguity with man ; 
And many monsters, thought extinct, are 

now proved his companions ; 
The Mammoth, and possibly the Dragon, 

that giant lizard of the wold, 
Were synchronous with man upon his earth ; 

so Scripture saith to Science : 
Ancient times and peoples of those earliest 

books of Moses, 



Of Scripture and Science. 95 

Giants on the earth in old days, Zamzum- 

mim and their like, 
Hint at possible primal tribes beside our race 

of Adam, 
Albeit none have found as yet one bone or 

stone for proof: 
The flood that drowned the world of men 

on Asia's sunny plain, 
Was not of necessity for Europe, where man 

was not yet found : 
The fountains of the deep were broken up ; 

the foundations of the world are out 

of course ; 
He changeth the vestures of the globe, by 

strata laid on strata : 
In the days of the patriarch Peleg, was not 

the earth divided, — 
By continents and islands broken off, accord- 
ing to the old traditions ? 



g6 Of Scripture and Science. 

He hath weighed the substance of the globe, 

exactly, as in a balance ; 
Holding it up by His omnipotence, the 

hollow of His hand : 
He sitteth on the circle of the world, guiding 

its career upon that orbit, 
And calleth out the stars by name, His 

worlds, His many mansions ; 
He recordeth some sweet influence of the 

Pleiades, — possibly that central Throne 
The wondrous Star Alcyone, round which 

this universe revolveth : 
If winged angels are in vision, were they 

not framed with due analogy, 
Not as painters dream, impossibly fledged 

and pinioned, 
But wisely and reasonably too, according to 

proportions and proprieties, 



Of Scripture and Science. 97 

With two wings covering the face, to cleave 

the air therewith, 
And two wings spread beyond the feet, to 

steer the course thereby, 
And two, to speed the flight; so seen of 

Isaiah and Ezekiel : 
Doth not the Preacher when he preacheth, 

of the wheel broken at the cistern, 
And the pitcher broken at the fountain, and 

the death of worn-out age, 
Tell of arteries and veins, and the circulating 

blood of life, 
The life that is the blood, unguessed for 

thirty centuries ? 
Who gave England Judah's Lion ? Who 

appointed eagles for the Nations ? 
Is it not He who hath forewarned this car- 
case of their gathering together ? — 

H 



98 Of Scripture and Science. 

Many are running to and fro, and words go 

very swiftly, 
And knowledge is increased, is flashed as 

lightning flasheth ; 
All corners of the earth are being peopled, 

her rough places are made plain, 
The valleys are exalted, and the very Alps 

cut through ; 
We shall fly with wings as eagles, subduing 

yet the air of our globe, — 
As fire and earth and water are subdued, all 

being parts of our heritage ; 
And the world shall be one great brother- 
hood, acknowledged of one blood, 
Freely to buy and to sell, going freely hither 

and thither, 
And all shall have one lip, one language, 

one religion, 



Of Scripture and Science. 99 

With tolerance for all creeds, as in Peter's 

sheet of beasts. 
Are not these things and their like written 

in the text book of the saints ? 
Is not that book worthy of all reverence 

from the sages ? 



H 2 



( ioo ) 



Of Silence. 



Holy Silence, happy Silence, thought- 
creating Silence, 

Blessed and luxurious Silence, — lo, how 
scarce thou art ! 

Within, loud turmoil of the spirit, or vexing 
whispers of the conscience, 

Worrying remembrances of evil, craving 
aspirations after good ; 

Without, the clamour of the world, of talk- 
ing men and women, 

And all those material perturbations dis- 
turbing our tiny planet-selves, — 



Of Silence. 101 

Alas ! how seldom is a man the fortunate 

anchorite of silence ; 
How rarely can he taste that balm, or listen 

to that music ! 



In old days great Pythagoras commanded 
holy silence 

As nurse of all the virtues and the learnings 

and the loves ; 
Five years his acolytes were dumb, and only 

looked their thoughts, 
And then might help the Teacher, vessels full 

of infused lore : 
Silence was their breeding-time for crystals 

of the mind ; 
And many would be wiser if they studied 

thus from Samos : — 



102 Of Silence. 

Half the awe of idols lay in mystery of 
silence ; 

Half the power of priestcraft is cold reti- 
cence at will. 

Silence was Pygmalion's love concreted in a 
statue ; 

Silence was the abstract charm to Zimmer- 
man in solitude. 

Silence strangely melteth down the felon's 
iron heart ; 

Silence to the Trappist is the mute beside his 
coffin. 

How oftentimes is Silence the wisest of 
replies ! 

"When insolence provoketh, when slander 
false-accuseth, 

When ignorance and prejudice are full of 
idle talk ; 



Of Silence. 103 

Let silence be the answer on thy lip and in 

thy life. 
So too, when many praise, as well as when 

they blame, 
And when thy name is loudest in the 

mouths of men, 
Thy strength is to sit still, in wise and 

humble silence; 
Let Silence lay her finger on thine unpre- 

sumptuous lip. 



Lo, the vast difference to souls within the 

sphere of silence ! 
That magic ring to one is life, to other 

nigh to death. 
Innocence tenderly enjoyeth the blessed 

calm of silence, 



104 Of Silence. 

Listening as an infant to its lullaby of 

peace : 
Guilt, terrified at self, abhorreth silent 

solitude, 
And findeth that sweet music only loud 

with hideous sound : 
The keen mind, full of thought, rejoiceth 

in a quiet hour; 
While dullards hold it irksome, to be killed 

as best they can : 
Health can hear therein only glad hopes 

and memories ; 
While nervous irritable disease hath peopled 

it with fears : 
The poet loveth that rare calm, as incense 

to his spirit ; 
The tattling gossip longeth but to spoil it 

with his talk. 



Of Silence. 105 

To all it is a test of state, bearing to be 

alone, 
Alone with God and conscience, and the 

memories of thy life : 
If eager to escape from these, avoid accusing 

silence ; 
If calm in their communion, thou wilt seek 

it as thy friend. 
Hast thou kept thine innocency? are thy 

memories pure ? 
Is thine that honest and good heart, which 

The Master loveth ? 
Then shalt thou rejoice alway to breathe 

the balm of silence 
On lonely hills or strolling by the solitary 

sea. 



io6 Of Silence. 

Silence strengtheneth love, — innocent and 

unintended silence, 
Whereto do cling excuses and kind fancy- 
pleading well : 
Silence weakeneth love, — obstinate, guilty 

silence, 
Where doubts and fears and thoughts of 

scorn combine to wean the heart. 
The long-unanswered letter doth friendship 

nigh to death, 
And few affections can endure determined 

dogged silence. 
And woe, too, for the clamorous home where 

silence hath no lover, 
But scolding worry drowneth good, alike by 

day and night : 
There is the brawling wife, there are the 

wrangling children, 



Of Silence. 107 

There the tongue's hot embassage provoketh 

instant strife ; 
There the sad peace-lover in vain imploreth 

blessed silence, 
For all the loves and graces have been scared 

from that loud home. 



Wise and kind and good are the eloquent 

Silences of Scripture, 
For grace is shown in light withheld, not 

less than in light given. 
It would have diverted man from God, the 

one great end of his existence, 
Had he been told too fully of the constant 

ministry of angels : 
He would have scorned short Time, in 

teachings of the past Eternity ; 



108 Of Silence. 

And even an awful Future is made lower in 

importance than the Present : 
He would have been terrified from duties, 

if the spirits of the dead had hemmed 

him round, 
Or were it to be made his care, to help or 

serve them in their Hades : 
Curious questions are unanswered with, 

" What is that to thee ?" 
The simpler, u Follow me," is utterly man's 

duty. 
Yet may we speculate and argue, for God 

hath given us reason, 
And lights may dawn on Providence, that 

Scripture had not shown. 
He biddeth ears to ear, He willeth eyes to 

see, 
He is pleased if intelligence search out His 

workings with humility. 



Of Silence. 109 

The Silences that whisper in earth's caverns 

to the everlasting hills, 
The Silences of angels and of ghosts, and 

of animals with their spirits, 
These deep mysteries are themes that man 

may desire to look into, 
Groping through their darkness to feel for 

hidden truths. 
The puzzling wonders in creation, mingled 

good and evil, — 
Not due to Adam's sin, which blighted 

Adam's race, 
But longer of old and with innocent tribes, 

in those past million ages 
After the undateable Beginning and before 

our week of Cosmos, — 
Those are in silence till one seeth in these 

latter days, 



no Of Silence. 

That all things less than God decay from 

imperfections. 
And angels were the labourers, under their 

great husbandman The Son, 
Toiling for Him with skill and joy, rewarded 

and applauded ; 
Each of them brought some organism, when 

our earth was peopled, 
Which He should then infuse with life, and 

add the curious senses. 
His artizans were made by Him, and so 

their works are His ; 
And truer work have they to do than ever- 

chaunted hymns; 
The ministry of angels is seen in all 

creation, 
As well as through our daily walk in teach- 
ing and delivering ; 



Of Silence. 1 1 1 

And haply each may watch in love over his 

own blest handywork, 
For God made all things for Himself, but 

through His holy angels. 
These be truths scarce heard, lest utterance 

breed idolatries, 
That man may walk with God alone ; and 

Silence thus is wisdom. 



Speech is silver, Silence gold, according 'to 

the Spaniard ; 
Silence is the pearl, and speech the gaping 

oyster. 
Silence is the subtle scent, and speech the 

smothery smoke ; 
Silence is the mellow fruit, and speech the 

million leaves. 



112 Of Silence. 

Some have called her wisdom, as at least 
concealing folly ; 

Some have dubbed her more than half the 
Bhuddist's dream of Heaven : 

Sleep and trance and ecstacy are all near kin 
to Silence ; 

And the calm quietude of death is ever- 
blessed Silence. 



( H3 ) 



Of Spiritual Presences, 



That there be spirits multitudinous, infinite 

for differences and numbers, 
Spirits of good and evil, with all their 

many intermediates, 
The mischievous, the humorous, the sensual, 

as well as the pious and the wise, — 
Spirits of sinners as of saints, of idiots, 

things and animals, — 
That crowds of these there be, existing 

somewhere somehow, 
Most confess, and few deny, recognizing 

spirit-immortality. 

I 



114 Of Spiritual Presences. 

As the tree hath fallen, so the limbs must 

lie; 
The bent and scars of time survive and 

spread for ever : 
He that is pure becometh purer, he that is 

mean will yet be meaner, 
The filthy shall be filthier still, the gracious 

grow in grace. 
Spirit never dieth, neither is it merged into 

its God, 
For weal or woe a separate life, its Maker's 

friend or foe : 
And every inch of space in all earth's nooks 

and corners, 
The highest Alpine peaks, as the deepest 

Ural mines, 
The caverned halls of the Atlantic, the 

crowded hives of cities, 



Of Spiritual Presences. 115 

Every room in every house, every hill and 

valley, — 
All have teemed with life, and been earth's 

homes to spirits. 



So then these might claim to revisit each 

its birthplace, 
And there re-act the good or ill that 

chiefly warped its fate : 
And, if this had been allowed, the globe 

would be crowded up with spirits, 
Multitudes everywhere together, generation 

jostling generation, 
Until the commonest experience should be 

that of meeting ghosts, 
Mentally recognised and felt, if not also 

heard and seen ; 

I 2 



Ii6 Of Spiritual Presences. 

And such perpetual obstruction to human 
life and duty, 

Hindered and every way made void by in- 
terfering spirits, 

Would steal responsibility from man, and 
make his trial futile, 

Mingling his career, that should be separate, 
with the deeds of a cloud of ancestors. 



But, there is that Great Gulf fixed; and 

none, or few, may pass it ; 
So few, — if any ever passed, — that none is 

nigh to truth. 
Spirit, once emancipate from flesh, glorying 

in new-found freedom, 
Speedeth away to some vast orb where only 

spirits dwell, 



Of Spiritual Presences. 117 

There to await the Resurrection, there to 

anticipate the judgment, 
There to dream of bliss to come, or dread 

foreboded pangs, 
There to be happy in self-consciousness, or 

to be tormented by remorse, 
There, as in God's waiting-hall, to bide His 

coming verdict. 

Few: — what if such few, allowed for some 
dread reason, 

Have overleapt that wide abyss, as mes- 
sengers from Hades ? 

Or, what if some have never left their scene 
of life's ordeal, 

And so may haply have remained, nor need 
a real returning ? 



1 1 8 Of Spiritual Prese?ices. 

It may be, burdened with dark secrets, 

harassed by inexpiated crimes, 
A wretched soul hath now and then clung 

fiercely to its birthplace ; 
It may be that either of a pair, long joined 

in happy marriage, 
Hovereth in deep love about the other, 

visiting its mate continually : 
It may be, doting on her child, a mother's 

ghost hath lingered 
To guard him, like an angel, from some 

perilous evil nigh : 
It may be, rights or wrongs, deeply burnt 

into the spirit 
May bring it grovelling back, till full 

revenge be found : 
There have been writ such stories; some 

have seen strange sights ; 



Of Spiritual Presences. 119 

Knockings, voices, sobbings, have disturbed 

the castle guest : 
The long unburied skeleton beneath the 

murderer's hearth, 
The flickering lights at midnight in the 

tapestried oak-chamber, 
The hurried taps along the wall, the 

whispers heard across the bed, 
The footsteps down the staircase, — nothing 

seen though closely followed, — 
The wail forewarning death, that time- 
worn family presage 
Accomplishing its own sure end through 

superstitious fear, — 
The spectral faces in old mirrors, the gallery 

paced by its procession, 
The murders and the treasures, and the 

wrongs revealed by ghosts, — 



120 Of Spiritual Presences. 

Such strange tales are rife ; and fancy, with 

imposture, 
Hath multiplied these terrors to the credulous 

and cowardly : 
Yet, some few cases, — few, if any, — calmly 

well-attested, 
Have staggered shrewdest doubters, and 

compelled our sceptic faith : 
Here and there, we may have had revisitants 

from Hades, 
Now and then, some spirit may have lin- 
gered long on earth : 
There be many things undreamt of our 

philosophy, as the chief Poet hath 

declared, 
Which natheless may be truths and facts 

about that world of spirits ; 
And seers must stand well prepared, through 

some magnetic fitness ; 



Of Spiritual Presences. 121 

The unsealed eye, the common ear, per- 

eeiveth not such presences : 
But, as all ordinary law ruleth by regular 

appointment, 
Which nothing less than God's own hand 

may alter as through miracle, 
So it is only by a miracle, to be evidenced 

with rare cautions, 
That ever spirit hath been left to do some 

work on earth, 
That ever disembodied ghost was troubled 

about burial, 
That ever any soul of man hath leapt that 

Great Gulf fixed. 

Next, for the mystery of dreaming, — meet 

we spirits there ? 
Or find we not that same Great Gulf, we 

may not pass, nor they ? 



122 Of Spiritual Presences. 

Sleep is the merciful relaxing, unstringing 

of the vital bow, 
A loosing of the harpsichords, alike for mind 

and body, 
Whereby they drain, through rest, from the 

harmonies of nature round them, 
Both tunefulness and energy to sing their 

hymn of life : 
And dreams are as the dews, uprising out 

of memories, 
Vaporous clouds upsteaming from the 

marshes of the mind, 
Now tinged by setting Fancy, and roseate 

with sweet thoughts, 
Now rendered gloomy through regrets, or 

terrible from conscience. 



Of Spiritual Presences. 123 

Every day is closed as by its death, when 

we wrap us in the winding-sheet of sleep, 

Every night our spirits expand, as partially 

disfranchised from the body ; 
It is a foreshadowing of the future, sleep the 

type of death, 
And dreams suggesting to the soul its coming 

good or evil : 
Our dull fatigued material lieth in a breath- 
ing dissolution, 
While immaterial essence wandereth hither 

and thither; 
Sometimes, in old scenes of earth, curiously 

mingled with the present, 
Sometimes, fashioning the future, wildly and 

discoloured by the past, 
Sometimes — (as some think) — hovering with 

sister spirits, 



1 24 Of Spiritual Presences. 

Met in visionary worlds that vanish ere the 

morning : 
None remember, and no one may declare, 

what passeth in those dreams ; 
Only their influences remain, with hints 

when just awaking : 
We cannot win them back, nor coax their 

perished presence ; 
The consciousness of work-day life to them 

is instant banishment : 
Often have we, all in vain, endeavoured so 

to stay them ; 
But the world-element of wakefulness scat- 
tered all those shadows ; 
Quickly fade they, soon forgotten, wreaths 

of mist in sunshine, 
And rare is any record of them figured on 

the light. 



Of Spiritual Presences. 125 

Haunted by dark fancies, by sweet reveries 

refreshed, 
The waking spirit ill remembereth aught 

but peace or trouble : 
And it hath accorded with my musings, that 

some second life 
Separate, continuous, and reasonable, is the 

condition of sleeping; 
Separate, as with other accidents, faces, 

scenes, and circumstances; 
Continuous, night after night, with special 

past and future ; 
Reasonable, after its own sort, though little 

led by judgment ; 
And conscious, as through habit, of some 

sense of right and wrong : 
With the body's waking, that other life 

vanisheth away, 



126 Of Spiritual Presences. 

Gradually builded up again, with the body's 

slumbering. 
Neither is reality more strong for scenes and 

pains and pleasures 
Than in their keen ideals, born of sleep and 

dreams by night. 
Often in the mediate condition, half sleep- 
ing and half waking, 
We doubt within ourselves which of the 

twain is truest, 
This work-day world of matter, with its 

real and hard experiences, 
Or that the spirits' sabbath, free from worry, 

fear, and care : 
This so looketh like a dream, that so 

showeth a reality, 
Either seemeth other, as a sort of double 

life. 



Of Spiritual Presences. 127 

Whether in the body, or out of the body, — 

who shall truly tell ? 
For the mysteries of sleep are deep, in 

dreams and mental travel. 



O rare kingdom of the mind, by space and 

time unbounded, 
Where one may live a lifetime within a 

single night, 
And seem to speed on spirit-wings beyond 

this humble planet, 
And happily expand in light, as blossoming 

elsewhere, — 
O pure realms of thought, how few in all 

earth's millions 
Can claim to reign ideal kings above your 

vast domain ! 



128 Of Spiritual Presences. 

Who hath known the spirit of a man, or 
how he fareth in his dreams, 

Or wherein the experience of one is tallied 
by another's ? 

I know a mind conscious in itself of two 
clear states of being, 

The one with all its accidents in wakeful- 
ness, the other with its qualities in 
sleep : 

Day by day continuously, the history of its 
common life is one ; 

Night by night continuously, alike there is 
its unity of dreams : 

Haply, the chambers of the brain, each 
with its special occupant, 

Fancy, judgment, form, music, love, con- 
tention, 

Sink to natural rest in sequence one by one, 



Of Spiritual Presences, 129 

Closing the windows of their house, in some 

alternate order : 
Thus, while earthly talents gradually sink to 

slumber, 
The native genius of the spirit waketh up 

spontaneously in dreams. 
There is then the life of cultivation, social, 

normal, temporal ; 
And there is the life of intuition, spiritual, 

strange, and individual : 
Each hath a separate experience, yet is there 

but one spirit, 
As if it lived, by day or night, at home in 

different rooms. 
Rarely have I heard from others, never 

have I known myself 

That any disembodied soul hath come to 

earth in dreams; 

K 



I 3° Of Spiritual Presences. 

Fancy pictureth the dead, affection listeneth 

to their voices, 
But all thou hearest, all thou seest, grew of 

thine own brain. 



Lastly, for the ministry of angels: doubt- 
less, these be sent : 

Shrewdly the good centurion proved their 
frequent presence. 

When this our world was born, newly 
rolling out of chaos, 

(Chaos, an old ruin of past ages, no firstling 
of the God of order,) 

What was your mission, happy angels, when 
thus ye sang for joy ? 

Were ye then nothing but the minstrels, the 
choristers and bards of Heaven f 



Of Spiritual Presences. 131 

Verily, beside and beyond your exquisite 
soul-harmonies in music, 

Ye may have worshipped as artificers, in- 
telligently taught of God, 

Moulding lower works, exquisite in micro- 
scopic beauty, 

Which He then quickened into life and 
signed with His own signet. 

Wisdom and mercy well enjoined some 
special toil to each, 

Some insect, or some flower, some crystal, 
seed, or shell ; 

Suffering His servants as co-workers, bring- 
ing tribute-offerings, 

The children's gifts to God their Father, on 
that His new-world's birthday. 

And as ye worked in Eden, ye may since 

have watched on earth 

K 2 



132 Of Spiritual Presences. 

Those darlings of your skill His blessing 

made so perfect, 
Present yourselves, though all unseen, in 

woods and fields and valleys, 
And everywhere rejoicing in the works He 

praised so well. 



And as our ministering spirits, doing the 

Master's bidding, 
The Great King's happy soldiers, obeying 

His command, 
Whether ye be Cherubim, or Seraphim, or 

names of light unknown, 
O pure and precious essences, ten thousands 

of ten thousands, — 
How happily we think of you for help, in 

time of doubt or trial, 



Of Spiritual Presences. 133 

How tenderly ye watch, and guide, and 

whisper — go this way ! 
Those among you highest under God, 

brightest and first of the creation, 
Embodied crystals of His attributes, and 

purest of His works, 
Ever in the sunshine of His presence, Arch- 
angels (named in heaven 
The strength of God, the joy of God, His 

wisdom, love, and truth) 
How gladly we remember that, as Gabriel, 

or Michael, 
Ye ministered to Mary, and to Abram, and 

to Christ; 
How thankfully we hope that humbler 

ranks of angels 
Defend salvation's common heirs from 

danger and from sin ! 



134 Of Spiritual Presences. 

Yet is there never an appearance ; spiritually, 
invisibly, 

Through the listening heart and mind, oft 
in prayer and watching, 

Thus not righting against reason, nor con- 
straining circumstance, 

Ye do lead and teach and guard, and stand 
our spirit-friends. 

Amen ! we yield to your suggestions ; 
Amen ! we lean upon your arms, — 

And feel no fear and no distrust but you 
will help us well. 

So, not worshipping but honouring, as we 
honour friends, 

Our fellowship is, under God, with minis- 
tering spirits. 



( 135 ) 



0/T, 



ime. 



A little while, a little while, — we know 

not what He meaneth, — 
So much to lose, so much to gain, — all in 

this little while ! 
How strange a mystery is this, that the 

changeable should fix for ever, 
That the perishable seaflower should last, 

eternally crystallised in silex : 
A little while, a little space, a little chance 

and power, 
Resulting yet in marvel, and everlasting 

strength j 



136 Of Time. 

So we creep on our way, faint and darkling 
to the last, 

And then emerge in brightness, and yearn- 
ingly expand to freedom. 

Be it a month, or fourscore years, life is but 
a short swift season ; 

A cradle, or the cincture of the world, would 
be equally a prison to the soul. 

Just as one hath learned to cull a little 
wisdom, 

Humbleness with confidence in self, courage, 
tenderness, religion, 

Frankness, purity of life, health and cleanli- 
ness and silence, 

Patience and hearing other sides, and charity 
with excusing, 

Just as we have gained at last, through trial 
and experience, 



Of Time. 137 

Power to live more simply, more truly, and 

more wisely, 
The bell tolleth, and we go, obeying the 

behest of Heaven, 
The Master calleth and we come, to carry 

our life elsewhere : 
O the vanity, the dignity, the woefulness, 

the happiness of life — 
O many thoughts about this theme, wherein 

we all have part. 



No man is safe until his death : Tellus the 

Athenian spake shrewdly; 
There is no staying in one stay, no certainty 

in life. 
As wave succeedeth wave, passion foameth 

over passion, 



138 Of Time. 

One shall scarce be overcome, when another 

pusheth on to combat : 
The prodigal, hardly cured, catcheth the 

leprosy of avarice ; 
The wanton pleasure-hunter, chastened, 

falleth into cruelties of rage : 
I have known strict moralities in youth issue 

in the old man's meanness ; 
I have known the dissolute and prodigal 

change to the generous and pious : 
For each was but one phase, of its own 

peculiar character, 
Shewn in different lights, the polarised and 

common ; 
Youth hath rare prismatic tints, but hard 

old age few beauties ; 
And nature's primal outburst is tamed and 

toned by years. 



Of Time. 139 

The best are ever in most peril, save for 
grace and habit, 

As strung and tuned more exquisitely in the 
key of passion. 

None is ever safe ; though mercy, circum- 
stance, and custom 

Be the triple wall around some David or 
Josiah, 

Honour, sentiment, or feeling, may tempt 
to fatal sin ; 

And the one potency against it, is faithful 
humble prayer. 

Oftentimes the young man holdeth on, pure 
in his earliest course, 

Resisting temptation as it riseth, and wrest- 
ling down proclivities of nature ; 

I have watched him safe to manhood, — then 
through evil weakness 



140 Of Time. 

He hath turned aside, and is fallen; his 

prime and age are marred ! 
And often some poor youths, dissolute and 

shameless at the first, 
Are checked betimes and sorrowful, anon 

through grace repentant : 
These penitents in age, as that once saint 

in boyhood, 
Let all be humble for the present, culling 

wisdom from the past, — 
All, out of God, are insecure; all shall 

stand or fall, 
As mercy willeth, not unsought : and none 

is safe alone. 



Wherefore is there always such a charm to 
the pure and thoughtful spirit 



Of Time. 141 

In ancient things, and times of old, and all 

the hoary past ? 
That the cromlech and the ruin and the coin 

have a sort of nimbus round them, 
A hallowing kind of halo as in reverence to 

their age ? 
"Wherefore is the very rust and moss counted 

for the bloom of beauty, 
And homage rendered simply to the veritable 

antique ? — 
One of the attributes of God is deep and 

indefinite antiquity, 
And all His characters are dear to Reason's 

purest thought : 
He, as The Ancient of Days, antedateth all 

past time, 
Therefore with intuitive desire His creatures 

emulate that attribute. 



142 Of Time. 



Time is a speck on Space, a cork in the 

boundless ocean, 
A bubble floating lightly, about the eternal 

universe, 
Which is an illimitable sphere, and existences 

its circumambient surface, 
And God the centre of convergence, and the 

radii His ever-present powers : 
And whenever it commenced, our cosmos 

must have burst in suddenly, 
Cutting the circle with abruptness, and 

breaking its continuous circumference. 
The absolute beginning of creation must 

seem to have had relative beginnings ; 
As if recording life before, which had not 

really lived : 



Of Time. 143 

The tree created had its rings, as if of ancient 

seasons, 
The very seed newborn, was germed as from 

a parent, 
The lion bounding in his might, gave 

evidence of former years, 
And Adam at his prime, appeared to prove 

his childhood. 
The butterfly argued a chrysalis, a caterpillar, 

an egg, 
The fruitful soil of Eden showed old strata 

decomposed, 
Its first day, born in Autumn, spake of 

previous spring and summer, 
Its light from distant stars had travelled 

millenaries down. 
Yet, none of these had pre-existed : neither 

did the God of Truth 



144 Of Time 

Suffer seeming falsehood on His works, 

albeit He made them thus : 
For by His word, distinctly, the fiat of 

creation was proclaimed, 
All things ready at their best, with fruit 

after their kind. 
Whenever Creation was begun, it must have 

entered in its panoply, 
Perfect in results as of the past, in order to 

be perfect in this present : 
And the God of eternal truth, willing to 

save reason's doubting, 
Simply revealeth in The Word, — all firsts 

were at perfection : 
Therefore, rich in seeds; therefore with 

apparent testimony 
To some previous generation, condensed in 

His quick fiat. 



Of Time. 145 

Short of eternity for matter, the only rest 

for reason 
Is this temporal creation, with thus its 

riddles solved : 
The Almighty caused a present, born 

momentarily at will, 
To seem, not needfully to be, the growth of 

older pasts ; 
And then to spare our faith all doubts 

about His truthfulness, 
Grandly maketh proclamation, — the crea- 
ture at its best. 
This cleareth up the mystery, this answereth 

reason's question; 
God's word expoundeth His works, even 

as His works His word. 



146 Of Ti 



ime. 



He that dreameth of a monad, that all 

evolved thereout, 
Assumed the Maker of this monad, framer 

of a microscopic cosmos ; 
Place it far back in old eternity, still its birth 

was temporal, 
Only the vaster marvel, if one atom- 
seed; 
But no wholesome mind can bear with such 

a folly, 
Choosing the touch of a creator at some 

riper date. 
Wherefore not a macroscopic cosmos? 

Minuteness magnineth miracle: 
Even if beneath Omnipotence all things 

were not equal. 
At its best God's World-idea rolled out in 

teeming beauty, 



Of Time. 147 

Involving apparent preparations, as of years 

long past : 
But possibly the times of non-intelligence 

were hastened to give man his heritage, 
And needed not the million ages our slow- 
growths demand. 
Worshippers of some new sort, freewilled, 

reasonable, fallible, 
Were wanted at the Court of God, to 

illustrate His name, 
To show true attributes in Heaven, solely to 

be seen through sin, 
As colours in light are proved, only by the 

spectrum to distort them : 
Therefore this fabric of the world might 

well be hurried up to man, 
To quell the great expectancy, by clumping 

up those ages. 

L 2 



148 Of Time. 

We are at the climax of the periods, we 

sum up long aeons ; 
All the ancient chaos of the world resulted 

in man's era ; 
And our mundane life is, as it were an egg, 

a seed, 
To bring forth Reason's fruit, in time, for 

immortality. 



( i49 ) 



Of little Providences. 



Hast thou not noted, O my brother, how 

carefully thy steps are guided, — 
How tenderly when thou dost well, — how 

sternly, doing ill ; 
What instant recompense or penalty, for 

duties or transgressions, 
Just judgment even here, in due reward and 

punishment ? 
Hast thou not watched upon thy way the 

myriad little matters 
Proving to thee everywhere that Providence 

is nigh, 



I 5° Of little Providences. 

Guiding, according to the covenant, ordered 

in all things and sure, 
And making circumstances work together 

for thy good ? 
Infinitely great, infinitely little, infinite for 

past and future, 
Everything is infinite around us, infinite 

alike within us. 
There are globes of an immensity so vast, 

that earth is but a molecule beside 

them, 
And spores of invisible fernseed are worlds 

of sensitive life. 
What is man, that Thou art mindful of 

him ? Behold, he is an atomy of dust 
Dropt for a moment on a spot, that is but as 

a molehill to the mountains, 
Himself a microscopic world, each man in- 
finitely wondrous, 



Of little Providences. 151 

With a past of preparations none have 

guessed, a future of evolvements none 

can calculate. 
Thou art as a nothing to the universe, yet 

even thy thoughts are registered ; 
Thou wanderest hither and thither, but 

every step is ordered ; 
Thou goest as in freeness of thy will, yet 

Providence is ever on the way, 
Beautifully guiding and preventing, inlaying 

the Mosaic of thy life. 
All things hang together, causes facts and 

consequents ; 
Nothing but hath had its seed, and yet shall 

yield its fruit : 
Thou mayest take small heed, thou hast 

counted it a chance, 
But that which now hath flowered, groweth 

on old roots ; 



152 Of little Providences. 

The egg was laid long years agone, before 

yon eagle in the clouds ; 
The word was uttered in thy youth, that 

made this friend or foe. 



If for the climax of Eternity there seem vast 
telescopic ends. 

Through Time, minutely running, flow the 
microscopic means, — 

All things leavening up in mass, all con- 
verging to a focus, 

And every thread and every ray a miracle of 
care; 

A miracle of mercy too, unless thy folly 
scorn it; 

A miracle of wisdom, whatever be thy 
thought. 



Of little Providences. 153 

Sometimes, glimmering in the darkness, we 

note that shadowy Hand, 
Sometimes catch a glitter of the golden 

thread 
Showing its light as a spider's clue, through 

our caverned labyrinths, 
And always safely leading, if we will not 

let it go. 
The little hints of Providence are dropped 

as millet seed, 
To crackle as we tread, and guide our dark- 
ling steps : 
The thought, not yet on our lips, swift 

uttered by a friend, 
The scene, pressed upon the mind, and 

present through a seeming accident, 
Even the pattern on a carpet, even the 

paper of a room, 



154 Qf little Providences. 

The right man casually met, the curious 

coincidence of matters, 
The fruits to-day is gathering from plant- 
ings of old yesterdays, 
The finding out, how often, — that strangers 

have part-lot with us, 
Mixt with our past, joined to our present, 

and promising or threatening our 

future, — 
The mysteries and histories in words, the 

wonderful properties of numbers, 
The wit and apposite energy in jokes, puns, 

anagrams, and riddles, 
All tell of unconsidered providences, ordering 

and working everywhere, 
And waiting for the mind of man to note 

perfection in them. 



Of little Providences. 155 

The glory of God is in the highest, His 

glory is also in the lowest, 

Guiding the worlds in their courses, and 
piloting the thistledown not less ; 

He rideth on the wings of the storm, He 
lingereth in the perfume of a lily, 

He mouldeth the iceberg, and the Alp, and 
the atoms of a dust cloud in the desert : 

He that reared Jorullo, the burning Mexican 
mountain, 

Twelve thousand feet in a night, one hun- 
dred years ago, 

The same Hand exquisitely layeth, in tesse- 
lated microscopic beauty, 

The rainbowed roofs and pavements within 
the mouths of snails : 

He that raised up a Timour, or a Csesar, 
for judgment on the nations, 



156 Of little Providences. 

Sitteth beside the school-child, as she singeth 

at her sampler ; 
He that inspired Adam's tongue, to give fit 

names to creatures, 
Ordained its rustling chirrup to the cricket 

on the hearth. 



There is an intricate perfection, a minute 

fitness and completeness 
In everything about us, Providence, Grace, 

and Nature : 
All marvellously guided at every inch and 

instant, 
Circumstances, laws, and elements, animate 

beings or inanimate ; 
Music, numbers, and mechanics, grammar, 

art and science, 



Of little Providences. 157 

All, however human, showing sparks of the 

divine ; 
Even the plays upon words, the witty turns 

of converse, 
Declare superior wisdom lying hidden in 

their mirth ; 
Majesty, shorn of its externals, is it but a 

jest, — or something more ? 
While Nelson's name proclaimed from birth 

his honour from the Nile. 
He that numbereth the stars, hath numbered 

the hairs of thy head, 
No sparrow, and no dynasty, falleth without 

our Father : 
The little and the great are His, the ludi- 
crous even as the grave, 
Ay, and the evil as the good ; for, evil is 

but good corrupted : 



J 58 Of little Providences. 

This is the mystery of mysteries ; and where 
to draw the line ? 

He is all-power and all-love, yet thus per- 
mitting misery ; 

He is the mover in all life, alike in sinner 
as in saint ; 

He blasteth in the pestilence, even as He 
blesseth in the sunshine : 

All we are sure of, as in faith, is that He 
worketh righteousness ; 

How, we see not now : but we shall know 
hereafter. 



( 159 ) 



Of Success. 



Of old, men worshipped Good Success, — 

made good by its succeeding; 
And now they worship nothing, but go 

wondering at Success : 
The altar is not built, and the incense is not 

burnt, 
But he that hath succeeded is, in spite of 

wrong, a hero : 
They ask not how, nor why ; Success is 

answer wholly, — 
The how of sin and why of shame, are 

nought if one succeedeth. 



1 60 Of Success. 

And in their profanity they judge, that facts 

are coins of Providence, 
As stamped by God's authority, and issued 

in His name ; 
But wrongs, though facts, must not be held 

such darlings of His mind, 
He giveth those no mintmark, though the 

forgers pass them freely. 
The Providence of God is throned on high 

above all facts : 
Facts do not evidence His will, but oftener 

His forbearance. 
A fact, a great success, may be a sin or fault 

or folly ; 
God never wrought a wrong, in Nature 

Providence or Grace. 
Laws once good may warp, and bend to evil 

issues, 



Of Success. 161 

But their corruption is a charge not to be 

laid on Providence: 
True, He permitteth and is silent ; wicked- 
ness awhile may prosper; 
But none may claim for Providence a fact 

of crime or shame. 
Nation riseth against nation, both thus 

punished for their sins, 
And athletes batter athletes, while Justice 

looketh on, — 
And victory will be given to the strongest, 

not for the conqueror's deserts, 
But, simpler so, because the weak had earned 

this crushing judgment. 
In vain ye chaunt Te Deum : He loveth 

not such praises, 
He stood aside and suffered, and His hand 

was not stretched out. 

M 



1 62 Of Success. 

Yet, the dread penalty shall fall, the meed 

for wrong successful, 
For nations are as persons, and are judged 

for that they do, — 
And " cursed be the man that moveth his 

neighbour's landmark," 
Shall ban conflicting peoples for those mur- 
ders and those thefts. 
This is their day for triumph, but judgment 

cometh with the morrow, 
Woe unto the wrong-doer, his crimes — are 

millstones round his neck. 
Nothing can sanctify a sin, not even great 

success, 
And unrepented sin is punished in a nation 

by its ruin. 



Of Success, 163 

Wouldest thou make enemies, Succeed ; 

thou humblest many rivals ; 
Envy, hatred, malice, shall dog thy great 

career ; 
And failing, those are not thy friends ; thy 

sin hath been ambition, 
And having missed the prize thyself, they 

mock at thee for spite. 
Wouldest thou find friends, Succeed; the 

crowd love hero-worship] 
And of those worshippers are some whose 

hearts are worth the winning : 
Also, the generous of thy rivals will be 

friends to cheer thee for successes ; 
And such be souls of noblest mark, friends 

whom the good can love. 
O Success ! what a triumph to be safe, in 

view of all those perils ; 

M 2 



164 Of Success. 

O Success ! what a happiness within, re- 
membering those enemies without ; 

O Success ! if linked with pride and selfish- 
ness, how evil : 

O Success ! how great a good, well won and 
humbly worn. 



Hast thou once succeeded, — hast thou hit 

the gold ? 
Take heed thou tempt not fortune, — she 

may turn her wheel and leave thee : 
Prudence whispereth, forbear; but energy 

answereth prudence — 
Success shall never be the drag to check my 

flying chariot : 
Often is there seen the youth, diligent rather 

than ambitious, 



Of Success. 165 

Stopt short in early mid career by soon 

achieved success : 
The prize, the class, the local praise, have 

satisfied his yearning ; 
His mind is not moulded of the highest, 

seeing thus he feareth for his fame ; 
Selfish glories have been gained, he will risk 

nothing further; 
And so that prudent whisper helped both 

indolence and pride. 
Early fruit is seldom followed by a second 

crop; 
That precocious tree is shadowed by its 

hedge of laurels. 
But if a mind be vigorous, and love not its 

own glory, 
The tree shall strike root downward, and 

shoot its branches upward, 



1 66 Of Success. 

And leaving those young days, and all that 

hedge of laurels, 
Will dare again to fling out fruits, and tempt 

a new success : 
It is more generous so to dare : and lo, those 

fruits are better, 
Riper, richer to the taste, than in its first 

young days. 



Alas ! the many yearning souls that never 

won Success 
And yet have well deserved to win, for 

diligence and merit. 
Alas, the gems unprized, — alas, the flowers 

ungathered, 
Alas, the disappointed hopes, the spirits 

broken down ! 



Of Success. 167 

This seemeth bitter to thy tongue, but it 
may be sweetness in thy stomach, 

Failure is Success to thee, if thou couldst 
read all truth. 

Take comfort in the happy thought that 
thou art guided wisely ; 

Thy duty is to well-deserve that unachieved 
Success. 

Courage ! — try- once more ; remember Palissy 
the Potter ; 

Remember Bruce, six times o'erthrown, and 
conqueror in the seventh ; 

Remember Joseph in his prison, soon all 
Egypt's ruler; 

Remember Christ upon His Cross, — did He 
not seem to fail ? 

Never yet was Great Success, but it com- 
menced with Failure, — 



1 68 Of Success. 

Smoke is first and then the flame : and chaos 
before cosmos : 

Night preceded day ; it is written, the even- 
ing and the morning ; 

Seeds lie long in darkness, and their flowering 
is not yet : 

Only strive, only deserve ; and fear not thou 
a Failure ; 

Courage and constancy be thine, and thine 
shall be Success. 



( 1 69 ) 



Of the smaller Morals. 



Keep the ten commandments with thy 

might, and do all highest duties ; 
But also pay thy lesser tithes of anise, mint 

and cummin : 
Honest, pure, contented, kindly, true, 

religious, 
Serving God, and loving man, — be these all 

thine at best : 
But heed thou also humbler things, the 

trifles of thy life, 
For life is filled with trifles, and they may 

not be despised. 
Much of happiness is missed through mere 

neglect of trifles, 



170 Of the smaller Morals. 

Much of good-doing destroyed, for lack of 
tact and manner. 

And godly men have erred in this contempt 
for taste and beauty, 

By vulgar freedom driving high-bred souls 
away: 

O the mass of meannesses, of harsh ungenial 
acts, 

Scarce short of sin as shorn of grace, whereof 
some saints are guilty — 

Saints, as men may taunt them, and who 
thus would style themselves, 

But oftener chiefs of sinners as regard the 
smaller morals. 

Selfish, inconsiderate, illiberal, and vain, 

Can any such be saints indeed, — or hypo- 
crites at heart ? 

And some there be, protesters against pam- 
pering of the flesh, 



Of the smaller Morals. 171 

Separating cleanliness from godliness, who 

hold it holy to be filthy : 
But He who bade the heart be sprinkled 

from an evil conscience, 
Gave a simultaneous command, that the 

body should be washed in pure water ; 
From the crown of the head to the sole of 

the feet ; keep this small moral daily ; 
It shall be life and strength to thee, the 

cheapest of good comforts. 

A sound mind in a sound body, is the 
blessedness of creatures ; 

So spake the wise of old, and we cannot 
mend their wisdom. 

And chief, for the sound mind ; to pass by 
highest morals — 

Quiet conscience, hopes to come, and dili- 
gence in duty, — 



172 Of the smaller Morals. 

Guard thou these lesser matters : never nurse 

regrets ; — 
For sins, repent, forsake ; for chances lost, 

forget them : 
Take thy cup as it is mixed ; accept thy lot 

with patience; 
Count all things sent of Providence, that are 

not shame or wrong : 
Many have killed their comforts by sadden- 
ing reveries ; 
Regrets are weakness, folly, grief; spunge 

all regrets away. 
Never worry for the future ; as never bewail 

the past ; 
Trust in God ; for, day by day, He giveth 

daily bread ; 
Thy fears may never come to head, thy 

carefulness is vanity, 



Of the smaller Morals. 173 

And all thou gainest by distrust is loss of 

peace of mind. 
Never delay about the present ; duties are 

all nows, — 
Do that thou hast to do at once, and rid 

thee of its care. 
The letter left unanswered is a petty thorn . 

of thought ; 
Occasion once neglected may not visit thee 

again : 
Things to be done, once done, are flung 

behind for ever, 
And hinder not our onward way, nor vex us 

with their coming; 
Cheerfully, diligently, reasonably, work the 

work before thee, 
Abjuring all those lesser sins, regret, distrust, 

delay. 



174 Of tb c smaller Morals. 



Next, after health of mind, study health of 

body ; 
Each man is his best physician as to meats 

and drinks. 
All excess is bad ; abstinence, as intemper- 
ance; 
Gluttony is evil, — and starvation ; the ascetic 

sinneth as the epicure. 
Eat thankfully, drink cheerfully, both in 

moderation ; 
And let thine appetite survive its temperate 

repast. 
Against ill dreams by night, and aches and 

pains by day, 
Guard good health from heat and cold and 

wet and sudden changes ; 



Of the smaller Morals. 175 

A little care, a little sense, shall save thee 

bitter trouble ; 
It is no petty moral to preserve thy body's 

health. 



Then, after prudent self-attentions, for the 

inner man and outer, 

\ 
Regard the happiness of others, and so be 

happier thyself. 
Have a merry word for every child, a gentle 

word for all dependents; 
A frank word for every man, a courteous 

word for every woman. 
Speak kindly to thy horse and dog, that 

serve thee well and love thee ; 
And bid the carman grease this wheel, or 

shift that galling buckle. 



1 76 Of the smaller Morals. 

Spare the snail thy foot might crush, and 
save the drowning fly, 

And shew the meanest thing alive that thou 
art like its God. 

Drop a good word genially and shrewdly 
between contentious neighbours, 

And, with discreet knight errantry, help and 
defend the right. 

Crown every passing day with some good 
action daily, 

And add to this the frequent prayer, un- 
heard of all but Heaven, 

And add to these the happy thoughts re- 
corded on thy tablets, 

And so redeem the time in little matters as 
in great. 



Of the smaller Morals. 177 

For other smaller morals ; pay quickly that 

thou owest; 
The needy tradesman is made glad by such 

considerate haste. 
Pay duly also those other petty debts, the 

letter, or the visit, or the gift ; 
It is always happiest to be just ; and wiser 

so to rivet up young friendships. 
For mirthful times, exaggeration is the soul 

of wit, 
At others, speak plain truth ; but blurt not 

out a secret. 
From eye and ear and tongue and touch and 

thought reject all lewdness ; 
A poisonous double-savour will corrupt the 

sweetest spikenard. 
Watch temper; evil temper is the com- 
monest sin, 

N 



178 Of the smaller Morals. 

And many perish through that sinj un- 
scathed by grosser crime : 
Yet temper is in some a peevish habit of 

ill-health ; 
Let diet be its petty cure, as animal per- 

verseness. 
Trust men, and let them know it; they 

shall never cheat thee; 
But if thou show suspicions, they will use 

thee as they can. 
Be not eager for a bargain, mindful of its 

starving worker, — 
O the feverish hands of want that wrought 

this rich brocade ! 
Smite not thy neighbour in the dark, nor 

stab him in the back ; 
Speak thine accusing openly, and hear ere 

thou condemn him. 



Of the smaller Morals. 179 

Hide what is ugly and offensive, taught by 

the modesty of nature ; 
Conceal defects for charity ; and cover up 

small faults. 
Respect the religion of a man, whatever be 

his creed, — 
Reverencing even superstition, if it seem both 

harmless and sincere. 
Keep justice, keep generosity, yielding to 

neither singly; 
And follow each good impulse, but with 

reason by its side. 
Consider, the Christian is a Gentleman ; and 

all that becometh gentle blood 
Is thine of privilege and right, thine honour- 
able vocation : 
Thou shalt be delicate, and true, chivalrous, 

calm, courageous, 

N 2 



180 Of the smaller Morals. 

Exhaling a sweet perfume from the garden 
of thy graces, 

That yieldeth fragrant flowers, rooted in the 
sturdy decalogue, 

And veiling under beauty's mask the skele- 
tons of life. 



( i8i ) 



Of Rhyme and Rhythm. 



Herein is a deep mystery of Language, a 
mystery that none hath solved, 

A mystery that few consider, and no book 
noteth down : 

How came it that for fifty centuries, of rea- 
sonable Man upon this earth, 

Speaking, singing, writing, full of love and 
music, 

No one, till nine centuries ago, thought upon 
the melodies of rhyme, 

No poet woke its echo, and no lover worked 
its charm ? 



182 Of Rhyme and Rhythm, 

How happened it that all the seers of old, 
psalmists and chief musicians, 

The lyrist with his amatory song, the 
bacchanal shouting Evoe, 

Choruses pacing out their measures, in 
cadence with their words, 

And all that either tragedy, or comedy, hath 
breathed in perfect rhythm, 

Never, — but by scarce accident, utterly un- 
noticed and unfelt, — 

Rose to the high harmony of rhyme, or fell 
into the pleasantries of jingle. 

Go to Isaiah or to Job, to Moses Deborah 
or David, — 

Search throughout Hesiod and Homer, Bion 
Theocritus and Moschus, 

Ask of Pindar, Aristophanes, iEschylus, 
Sophocles, Euripedes, 



Of Rhyme and Rhythm, 183 

Even of Anacreon and Sappho, Horace 

Ovid and Tibullus, 
Virgil and Lucretius and Martial, Catullus 

Juvenal and Persius, 
Is there one of them who guessed, what 

magic lingereth in Rhyme, 
Did any of those lyric chiefs dream of this 

new glory ? 



Think with what added sweetness, Horace 

might have wooed his Lydia, 
Or Lesbia and her sparrow, have charmed 

us, in rhymed song; 
With what electric force, Tyrtaeus would 

have roused the phalanx, 
And how the Dorian verses should have 

echoed in the hills ; 



184 Of Rhyme and Rhythm. 

How, pointed sharper by a rhyme, old 
Martial's epigrams had bitten, 

How pastoral bucolic strains had sounded 
with sweet endings : 

Verily, strange it seemeth, that with tongues 
so rich in similarities, 

Where every tense, and case, and mood, is 
normally alike, 

No one, through all ages, thought of the 
gamut of language, 

But only rang the changes on its times and 
not its tones. 

And stranger still it seemeth, that none have 
noted this strangeness, 

That scholiasts, commentators, teachers, over- 
look it all ; 

I wot not where to seek, for one who saw 
this marvel, 



Of Rhyme and Rhythm, 185 

Or told how wonderful it is, that rhyming 
is so new. 



Consider ; it would seem the very vice, of 

earliest savage tongues, 
Nursery-chime of the childhood of the 

world, a jingling everywhere ; 
Their love-ditties and war songs, their feasts 

and hunts and dirges, 
Should all be full of rhyming, from Jubal 

down to Merlin : 
And yet for nigh five thousand years, all 

poetry had flowed in rhythm, 
And neither Warrior, Sage, nor Fool, had 

rhymed a hymn or song; 
Their ears, exquisite for time, curiously 

lacked for melody ; 



1 86 Of Rhyme and Rhythm. 

Even their alliterative echoes led not on to 

rhymes ; 
The strophe and antistrophe, were measures, 

but not music, 
And syllables were counted, but no man 

gauged a sound : 
There was needed, through long ages, the 

prophet to arise, 
Teaching the metrical ear musical melodies 

too. 



So, with another sense, brightened by 

modern energies, 
It is but recently that landscape hath seemed 

pleasant to the sight : 
Lately as in our grandsire's day, none could 

appreciate the AIds, 



Of Rhyme and Rhythm. 187 

A cultivated plain, was all they thought of 

praising ; 
The grandest sublimities of nature were but 

horrid in their eyes, 
And none took note of scenery, nor cared to 

toil up mountains ; 
But the painter and the poet were at hand, 

pouring their eloquent preachings, 
And scales fell off men's eyes, and the 

glacier and the precipice are glorified. 



Even thus it fared with poetry ; until nine 

centuries ago, 
And after well nigh fifty had heard the 

speech of men, 
The world awaited a discoverer, who found 

the trick of rhyme, 



1 88 Of Rhyme and Rhythm. 

And charmed at once its listening ears, by- 
sweet expected echoes. 

Haply he came from the uttermost East, 
beyond the shores of Ind, 

From the far land of Sinim, or more remote 
Japan ; 

And wandering minstrels caught the strain, 
and wise monks heard it gladly, 

And chaunted hymns and songs apace, in 
rough and cheery rhyme ; 

And soon the sweet infection spread over 
every land, 

Charming the Northmen and the Celts, en- 
listing troubadours and trouveres, 

None asking whence it sprang, while all 
enjoyed its pleasure, 

And no man known as the inventor, of 
what so many used. 



Of Rhyme and Rhythm. 189 

Only, in their Hades far away, were those 
ancient poets stirred, 

Finding that even Masters may have some- 
what left to learn ; 

That even their sweet harps had lacked this 
newest string ; 

That even choicest rhythm might be bettered 
by a rhyme. 



( l 9° ) 



Of Zoilism. 



To pass just judgment on a good man's 
book, to gauge its author's mind, 

To print and scatter through the world thy 
verdict on his works, 

This is an honourable trust, a matter re- 
sponsible and anxious, 

Demanding knowledge, patience, care, with 
special kindness and acuteness : 

Haply the work upon thy desk is the 
ripened labour of a lifetime, 

Years of thought, research, and prayer, con- 
densed within that book ; 



Of Zoilism. 191 

Happiness, fame, and fortune, hang on its 
success, 

It may be also livelihood, children's bread, 
and honour; 

While the heart of a mother or a wife, and 
not alone its author's, 

Will be pained or gladdened by the judg- 
ment, passed upon the one they love : 

Yet, to this great result, this toilsome long 
achievement, 

Some self-elected censor giveth one dyspeptic 
hour; 

Cursorily scanning it in haste, he decideth 
with superficial carelessness; 

And that despotic sentence shall be multi- 
plied to the ends of the earth. 

Even if no lower motives enter, no envious 
hatred of success, 



192 Of Zoilism. 

In that same field where he hath failed, and 

will not brook a rival ; 
Even if no spirit of slander provoketh him 

to harm good fame ; 
If there be no lust of mischief in a man, 

anonymous and cowardly ; 
Even if the shibboleth of party commandeth 

neither praise nor blame ; 
If no book merchant interests affect 

antagonist Sosii, 
Still, there is indomitable hurry; no time 

for honest judgment ; 
So many volumes to be scanned, and all 

before to-morrow : 
Grant what honesty thou wilt, still, over- 
worked and fevered, 
The critic is but rarely fit to judge a true 

book truly. 



Of Zoilism. 193 



So, cometh it to pass, that the world heedeth 

lightly of such teachers ; 
We hear their arbitrary dictates, but heed 

our own free thoughts : 
In spite both of indolence and industry, men 

judge mainly for themselves, 
And, lazy though they be, kick hard against 

the tyrants ; 
They read and like and buy, following their 

own opinions, 
And take small count of critics, howsoever 

such may dream : 
The mighty We, yon nameless unit, how 

well scorned it is ! 

That undefined grand Name is Nothing 

when we know it. 

o 



1 94 Of Zoilism. 

The wizard's wand is powerless; for this 
Prospero hath broken it himself, 

He hath outraged truth and honour, there- 
fore is his censure praise : 

His spite is but a spur that quickeneth 
merit's paces ; 

His puffs may swell dull bubbles, but only 
till they burst ; 

The venom blast of envy, that hateth young 
success, 

Is but as a tonic in the air, bracing and 
fixing popularity ; 

Even the should-be Marsyas, as flayed by 
his malignant censors, 

Stolidly rhinoceros-hided, scorneth all their 
scalpels. 



Of Zoilism. 195 

No man dreadeth Zoilus, no woman courteth 
Aristarchus ; 

No Keats again shall die of such ; no Shelley 
pale before them : 

Actors, unfaithful hypocrites, they over- 
play their parts ; 

Pens are poignards in their hands ; an ink- 
stand the fountain of detraction. 

The critic, taking refuge in reviling, as an 
idler method than reviewing, 

Filleth the public ear, for gain, with flashy 
slanders ; 

But the crowds that laugh and listen, while 
they like such humours, 

Only despise that cankerous tongue, and 
take the victim's part : 

Critics have diligently managed, by dint of 

long ill-doing, 

o 2 



196 Of Zoilism. 

To have lost all credit and esteem, and have 

flung the world away ; 
It was not easy with their powers, save for 

the corruption of their morals ; 
Men were content to follow them, but not 

through shame and mud ; 
Smothered in his own ink, stabbed by his 

own steel pen 
Snared in his special gin, tangled in his 

proper meshes, 
And fallen into the pit that he had digged 

for other, — 
Zoilus is socially quenched, and the libeller 

is libelled by his mates ; 
The malice of his strictures is as viper's-fat 

for cure, 
His judgment hath no weight, his slanders 

glorify their victim, 



Of Zoilism. 197 

He dare not avow among his fellows he 

hath written such and such, 
Treacherously wounding in the dark, he 

liveth yet in terror of discovery, 
And where he stabbed he stabbed in vain, 

only to blunt his dagger. 



A fool can ask questions, that shall puzzle 

the sage to answer, 
And feeble wits write forcibly, offhand, on 

wisdom's works. 
Thersites, bitter hunchback, — with Zoilus 

well clubbed and Aristarchus, — 
Is sworn to quench all Nestors, and to laugh 

Elishas down; 
These have taught the people, these have 

earned good fame, — 



198 Of Zoillsm. 

Therefore ignorance and envy league in 
lies to harm them. 

And, if a man hath written books, this (in 
attempt) is easy ; 

Forthwith, he, and they, are jointly fixed for 
targets : 

Mingling the writer with his work, infir- 
mities can load the scale, — 

He may be old, weak dotard ! or he may be 
young, pert boy ! 

Even if halt or blind, your modern critic 
spareth not for these, — 

Go up, go up, thou bald head ! the blind, 
to be leader of the blind ! 

Or thou canst sneer at his moralities, severely 
pure thyself, 

Haply, he is not sworn a Rechabite; pos- 
sibly hath debts and troubles ; 



Of Zoilism. 199 

Or, it may be that, heretofore, he hath said 

or done some folly, 
Or prodigal sons, or a vixen wife, may blow 

upon his credit ; 
Grand old Sophocles may be slandered 

through his children, Xantippe be 

alleged a shame to Socrates, 
And Job be charged with his afflictions, if 

he chance to have written a book. 

Let all such count against your author, 

helping to damn his volume, 
What merit should there be in this, if such 

dark stains in him ? 
Yet fruits are for judgment by themselves, 

in spite of the condition of the trees ; 
A crystal's angles are its own, wherever be 

the mountain cavern; 



200 Of Zoilism. 

And a book hath a separate being, purely- 
irrespective of its author, 

Albeit our interests are heightened, if it 
honestly reflect the man. 

The just critic should gauge each work, by 
its innate special qualities, 

Unprejudiced by accidents, that hang about 
the worker ; 

But our unjust judges in literature hunt 
down men, not books, 

Filled with bitter personality, sarcastic and 
foulspoken. 



How shall ignorance contrive to show like 

learning's self, 
When some unscrupulous reviewer sitteth 

down to judge his master ? 



Of Zoilism. 20 1 

That book is doomed to be condemned ; the 

critic must not read it ; 
Some awkward beauties in the thing might 

tamper with his verdict : 
So, it shall be handed to a clerk, to note its 

worst and weakest, 
And tear out pages, rich in faults, and every 

best omitted ; 
Happy if some chance misprint destroy 

grammatical concord, 
Happy if a word be found misquoted, or 

some fact ill dated. 
Then for a diligent half hour to con some 

cognate treatise, 
Some digest of his victim's theme, but on 

the opposite tack : 
Dipping from book to book, well indexed 

and well noted, 



202 Of Zoilism. 

He mastereth a few strange terms in the 

science off-hand to be discussed, 
Glanceth at the disputable spots, held to be 

his author's crotchets, 
And thus is ready for the onslaught, a 

cavalier of points. 
Then, with supercilious ease, great in stolen 

knowledge, 
Glibly shall he pen his essay on our author's 

theme ; 
Dropping down grandly from on high, as a 

vulture swoopeth upon carrion, 
He pounceth at the petty faults discovered 

by his clerk, 
Propoundeth that antagonistic view as the 

sole one a sane man can adopt, 
And bringeth that false date in proof, that 

all the rest is worthless ! 



Of Zoilism. 203 

It is wonderful how small and mean, beside 

this omniscient reviewer, 
Is seen the wretched author, though a 

master in his craft : 
It is marvellous with what contempt, what 

vast array of learning, 
Sanchoniathon, Manetho, and Berosus, freely 

quoting all, 
Our critic, — stripling from the schools, or 

starveling at the bar, — 
Goadeth his helpless prey, that old be- 

leagured pundit, 
A swordfish pricking at a whale, with never 

a voice to tell 
How full he is of oil, for a million midnight 

lamps : 
Lastly, to finish with a flourish, and prove 

superior lore, 



204 Of Zoilism. 

To catch the people's wonder, and show the 

judge's wisdom, 
Let him touch by innocent accident, upon 

the curious fact 
That Sanscrit was our passion when a boy, 

as is now the arrow-headed character ! 
Hints of such high scope exalt the critic's 

chair, 
And help to crush the caitiff whom his 

judge is to condemn. 



There is rubbish printed by the ton, that 
ought to be well censured ; 

But this is always praised, for merchan- 
dize of books : 

Novels, mere insects of an hour, are pro- 
phesied undoubted immortality 



Of Zoilism* 205 

And float their bubble life upon the well- 
paid puffs of fame ; 

And it is betimes a wisdom, when praise is 
found effete, 

To keep the shuttles up by battledores of 
censure ; 

Even actions, as for libel, have renovated 
tales of scandal, 

Ostensibly for morals, but to make the 
public buy. 

Sometimes, praise is very prodigal; this 
author is a noble ; 

Or — so ignoble as to be her critic's para- 
mour; 

Or — a writer with a following, some par- 
tizan of Church or State ; 

Or — his publisher is potent, canvassed by 
the press for favours : 



2o6 Of Zoilism. 

So, the censor is to praise ; let him read that 

book with diligence, 
And note with seeming ecstacies its poor 

and trivial best ; 
Happy is it for his honesty, if he find 

therein aught worthy of applause, 
But either way, through good and ill, this 

hireling slave applaudeth. 
O the multitude of witlings, partially be- 
lauded for their hour, 
Whom the world hath willingly let die, in 

spite of critic-friends ; 
O the galaxy of few great names, mocked 

by the starving Aristarchi, 
Who long have known their scorn, to be 

herald of the whole earth's reverence ! 
Where is there a man that hath escaped, of 

all our best and wisest, 



Of Zoilism. 207 

The false malignant judgment of the Critics 
in his time ? 

Every one hath stood as a Sebastian, naked, 
to be shot with arrows, 

Each, like that sweet saint, achieving im- 
mortality of love. 

What shall we say of yonder band, philo- 
sophers, bards, and sages, 

All condemned and scorned at first by dull 
presumptuous censors ? 

Wordsworth, simple and sublime, how long 
they laughed at thee ! 

Coleridge, the gentle and profound, which 
of them did honour to thine eloquence ? 

Byron, answering scorn with scorn, well 
didst thou turn and rend them, — 

And even Shakespeare, Newton, Pope, were 
scouted and defamed ! 



208 Of Zoilism, 



I have known yet baser motives affect our 

heralds of fame, 
Soiling the ermine, on the bench, of our 

self-dubbed judges in literature. 
Mercury, winged trumpeter, carrieth not the 

purse in vain ; 
iEacus, Minos, Rhadamanthus, are bribeable 

alas ! as Bacon. 
A certain writer in The Tadmor forwarded 

a fulsome panegyric, 
Professing boundless admiration for the 

works of a certain author : 
His letter, frankly written, touched upon 

the penury at home, 
And asked some score of pounds, a loan — 

no more — of honour : 



Of Zoilism. 209 

That letter had its postscript; the seed 
would be surely seen well sown ; 

A hundredfold of literary fame should fill 
the sower's bosom : 

Was not this a critic in The Tadmor? 
Could he not control The Scribe ? 

Had he not a voice in The Museum ? Were 
they not all one brotherhood ? 

Well should the generous author, glorified 
throughout the press, 

Be recompensed, as richly he deserved, by 
the grateful writer in The Tadmor ! 

The letter, flung aside with indignation, re- 
ceived not its answer as expected ; 

And straightway half the Arabs of the press 
defamed that unwise author : 

Scribe and Tadmor and Musaeum are to this 
day found his foes ; 



210 Of Zoilisnu 

How priceless then must be the praise, of 
Scribe and Tadmor and Musaeum ! 

Yet there is an honest phalanx, gallant, 

honourable, capable, 
Strong good hounds, and hunting fair, and 

of a generous stock. 
These will not vilely dog the heels of merit 

lest it scape them ; 
These will not cut across the scent, as 

lurchers running foul ; 
Straight and staunch they follow, and, if 

they kill their fox, 
They worry not the vermin, and he well 

deserved his end. 

And there is a nobler band, high in power 
and conscience, 



Of Zoilism. 211 

Who help the struggling genius, while still 

friendless and unknown : 
Whose frowns are only for the impious; 

whose wrath is reserved for the impure ; 
Whose ridicule may scathe conceit, but 

spareth even ignorance if modest ; 
Whose rich libations of praise are poured on 

worth and wisdom ; 
Whose verdict is an echo from High 

Heaven, of the Well done, faithful 

servant ! 



P 2 






( 212 ) 



Of Creeds. 



A pure life, a liberal mind, an honest and 
good heart, — 

This is the threefold cord bent upon the 
anchor of religion ; 

If either of those strands be rotten, that bark 
is found in peril, 

Nigh to be drifted on the reef, when as its 
hawser parteth : 

Void of purity in morals, faith is but a hy- 
pocrite of words, 

Charity cannot dwell with a mean and 
narrow spirit, 



Of Creeds. 213 

And there is but little hope, failing integrity 

of purpose ; 
Faith, hope, charity, the triple-twisted cable 

of religion. 
In a mere creed there is no salvation, no 

happiness in articles or dogmas, 
No real safety for the soul in the best cold 

code of forms ; 
Though thy theology be logical, and thy 

scheme most orthodox, 
Though thy sect be of the straitest, thy 

chain from the fathers of the strongest, 
These are none of them the comforters to 

bring a man peace at the last, 
These are not the elements of heaven in the 

soul: 
Holiness that hath no evil memories, kind- 
liness loveable to all, 



214 Of C ree ds. 

And cheerful trust toward God, will out- 
weigh all the creeds. 



Truth is as a sphere of crystal, so many- 
many-sided every way, 

With all its microscopic angles polished down 
and blent, 

That none can feel the corners, none per- 
ceive the bevils, 

A globe of million facets, like an insect's 
eye: 

And the longer a man liveth on the earth, 
growing wiser from experiences, 

The nearer he attaineth to this smoothness, 
this absence of the sharp and rough. 

He is tolerant, large, and genial, allowing 
differences readily, 



Of Creeds. 215 

And fitting every angled hole with simply- 
circled ease : 

He knoweth that there always is an answer 
to be equitably heard and weighed, 

Ever a view from the opposite point, another 
surface to the shield, 

Prejudices, bents, and educationals, all to be 
righteously considered, 

And strange epidemics for human minds, no 
less than for their bodies : 

The Empire of the Moslem Wahabees abhor 
as foul abominations, 

Not leprosy nor murder, but silken kerchiefs 
and tobacco ; 

Swines' flesh, the Gentile farmer's glory, 
will be sin and shame to a Jew; 

Bulls' flesh defileth unto death the intellec- 
tual Brahmin; 



216 Of Creeds. 

To be shaven is misfortune and disgrace to 

half the stately East ; 
The manly beard, till yesterday, was ridicule 

to polished Europe ; 
Eastwardly, a score of wives are credit, 

comfort, honour; 
Westwardly, suspicion of a second is misery, 

guilt, and ruin; 
One man sweareth by water, to cure him, 

nay to save him ; 
Pulse and lentils with another are religion in 

his food ; 
Ritual is all in all for this man, Spiritual ah 

in all for that ; 
Conscience is to one his law, authority to 

another ; 
Here, faith is pinned upon a book, there all 

truth is in the teacher, 



Of Creeds. 217 

A third relieth on the office, a fourth hath 

assurance in himself; 
One man seeth in his priest, as if the God 

incarnate ; 
Another claimeth for himself peculiar in- 
dwelling of the Spirit ; 
With this mind all argument is closed, by 

the dictum of an ancient saint ; 
With that mind light is to be found, only 

in a new apostle : 
The Nazarite and Rechabite abjure that 

which maketh glad the heart of man ; 
Garments of every shape are each held the 

livery for heaven ; 
Ecstacies and phantasies of madmen are 

hailed by their elect as inspirations ; 
And idiots among the Alps are counted for 

God's children by the Switzer. 



218 Of Creeds. 



And in such varying creeds there is ever 

some uniform good, 
A portion we can well excuse, or partially 

commend : 
Wise and true men will be found in each 

and every class, 
All taking as it were their tints, from spe- 
cialties in mind and body: 
Therefore it is vain with those diversities, to 

hope for similarity of creed, 
Though Chrysostcm persuade, or Torque- 

mada force it ; 
And tolerant wisdom is content, to suffer all 

phases of opinion, 
For shrewd experience of men seeth infinite 

variety in character. 



Of Creeds* 219 



Yea ; trumpet out what creed thou wilt, and 

that with Athanasian precision, 
Be thy logic of the Trinity the strictest, thy 

learning in the fathers of the deepest, 
Yet, if thy life be wicked, even Athanasius 

being judge, 
Thou that doest evil, thy wages are the fires 

everlasting. 
And, if in all good conscience, though warped 

by men and things, 
Thou holdest some extraordinary creed, 

fanatical and foolish, 
Yet, while thy life is righteous, the times of 

this ignorance are winked at, 
Thou that workest good, thy heart and thy 

rest are with the blessed. 



220 Of Creeds. 

Belief is a deep strong root, and a true creed 

beareth fruits of life, 
And a false creed, followed out in practice, 

yieldeth only poisonberries ; 
But the true creed solely in the head, and 

the false creed noways in the heart, 
Maketh good neutral in the first, maketh 

evil neutral in the second. 
Forms and liturgies and articles may screen 

Truth or display her, 
They be helps and they be governments, 

measures sieves and gauges, 
Finger-posts to show the way, and props to 

aid the weak ; 
For the outer Church is but a scaffolding to 

build up living stones ; 
The Heavenly Jerusalem is veiled, by no 

such human structure. 



Of Creeds. 221 

They that win many to happiness, be they 

priests or lay, 
Such true preachers are to shine, as the stars 

for ever and ever : 
The good priest here may have his speci- 
alties, but here too they shall cease ; 
Hereafter, equally with him, his flock are 

priests and kings : 
Woe to "him if he win not souls; glory to 

him if he win them ; 
But less to the priest than to the man, for 

his vocation is not carried thitherward. 
Offices forms and creeds are nought, except 

as means to ends, 
They all are things of earth, to perish in the 

using : 
And be thy superstition what it may, if it 

tendeth to good works, 



222 Of Creeds. 

The love of God and man, with earnest 

prayer and penitence, 
This is enough for happiness : as one of our 

own poets hath said, — 
Let bigots fight for creeds, the good man 

hath the right one. 



( 22 3 ) 



Of the future of Animals. 



There is needed a gospel for the brute, a 
preacher for the pariahs of creation, 

A voice to vindicate the justice, the wisdom 
and the mercy of their Maker ; 

His justice, ordering righteously ; His wis- 
dom, working not in vain ; 

His mercy, loving all His works, from the 
highest even to the humblest. 

There is lacking, through the selfishness of 
man, who voteth himself the centre, 

A word for the wide circumference, and the 
rays, and the tangents of his circle : 



224 Of the future of Animals. 

He hath set himself up for judge, deter- 
mining in his narrowness 
That God made laws for him alone, and 

took no thought for oxen ; 
That He who pitied Nineveh, noways 

heedeth its much cattle, 
And hath not heart, nor mind, nor will, to 

care alike for all things. 
He forgetteth that there is a Spirit, equally 

in man and brute, 
One tending upward if it may be, the other 

grovelling downward, 
Like in kind, but differing in degree, as 

humbler souls and higher; 
The brute limited both ways, for evil as for 

good: 
For while man's loftier spirit can sink to 

uttermost depths, 



Of the future of Animals. 225 

The brute, if less capable of rising, also is 

less liable to fall ; 
Evil example in its master may vitiate his 

imitative dog, 
Though this may be nurtured to be nobler 

than are many of the tribes of man ; 
But in no case can it be so base, as the 

town-bred scoundrel of society, 
Nor change to so vile a savage as the Anda- 
man or the Makariro : 
With all, education will do much, and the 

company of worse or better, 
High instinct over-treading the heels of 

lowest reason ; 
Yet the dumb beast may not reach our 

human degradations, 

Drunkenness, dishonesty, and cruelty, are 

not the brute's achievements : 

<2 



226 Of the future of Animals. 

Grant that it cannot worship God, it will 

idolize His image Man, 
Even to dying of grief, even to self-sacrifice 

to save him; 
Grant that it rise not to the Spiritual, — how 

few men rise to this ! — 
The dumb beast hath affections, loving and 

remembering, and thinking; 
It hath a sort of reason, and is not a mere 

machine ; 
It showeth a kind of moral sense, more than 

the Bushman or Fuegian : 
Unreckoning, it is generous and unselfish ; 

with a conscience both of evil and of 

good, 
Sensitive to praise and blame, and full of 

shrewdness and attachment : 
Nature standeth as its all in all for law, 

neither doth it sin against her ; 



Of the future of Animals, 227 

And the God of nature will in no wise 
destroy it for obedience. 



We may but touch analogies ; we dare not 
clench this doctrine with a dogma ; 

Our wisdom is to watch the hints, dropt in- 
cidentally by Scripture ; 

Proof is noways possible, and difficult ob- 
jections will abound, 

Prejudice crushing reason, and novelty 
showing as a falsehood ; 

And some may fancy that we claim an 
equal inheritance for all, 

Forgetting grades of being, and infinite 
diversities of state ; 

And other some will feel that for The 
Christ, to have ransomed man alone, 

Q 2 



228 Of the future of Animals. 

Is a selfish consolation to themselves, a closer 
and particular Redemption ; 

While the more magnificent Salvation of all 
man's fallen world 

In their view looketh little worthy, of a 
love more select than universal : 

The idea of soul-saved brutes will shock 
conceited men ; 

Catholic favour is an insult to elected and 
predestinated favourites. 

Therefore frequent are the gainsayers, and 
few the generous advocates, 

And much contention shall arise, for there 
be many adversaries : 

Nevertheless we will be bold to claim for 
the meanest of creation 

All its Creator's love, infinite eternal uni- 
versal : 



Of the future of Animals. 229 

God hath loved the world ; the Gospel is 

for every creature ; 
The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and 

the wilderness shall blossom as the rose ; 
The lion, with its ravenous nature changed, 

yet shall eat straw like the ox, 
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and 

the leopard lie down with the kid ; 
All sin and death and pain extinct, happi- 
ness and progress in communion 
Shall lead each creature to its best, migrating 

toward perfection : 
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all His 

holy mountain, 
The denizens of Earth in her millennium 

shall find that happy future ; 
Not only men and women, but all the 

creation of God 



2 3° Of the future of Animals. 

Shall glorify His goodness, in their new- 
recovered Eden. 



Man is not alone for love, for memory, 
shrewdness, honour, 

Many of his lower servants shame their 
master here. 

The soft domestic cat, affectionately pur- 
ring, 

That findeth home again from far, through 
some mysterious sense ; 

The kind-eyed noble-hearted dog, defend- 
ing thee so bravely, 

Forgiving oft and loving much, and ever 
full of gratitude; 

The generous highbred horse, with his fine 
sensitive feelings, 



Of the future of Animals. 231 

Vicious against the foul-mouthed groom, 
but gentle toward his mistress, 

The wise and wary elephant, the parrot, 
and the camel, and the reindeer, 

And all our other humbler friends, our mute 
slaves and companions, — 

These have climbed, through education, to 
higher grades of mind 

Than whole savage families of men have 
won through countless ages ; 

These have not outraged the moralities, these 
have not stupified intelligence, 

Like half our rustics, half our workmen, at 
some race or fair ; 

These show kinder evidence of soul, in con- 
science affection and devotion, 

Than all the gypsies of our downs, the out- 
casts in our streets : 



232 Of the future of Animals. 

Look from the high-mettled racer, to the 
shrivelled mean blasphemer on his 
back, — 

Which of these should win an immortality ? 
which of them hath earned annihilation? 

True ; the brute's limit now is earthward ; 

but all have limits here, 
All are cramped and prisoned in these 

charnel walls of sense ; 
Yet, wherefore should not brutes expand, as 

well as man hereafter ? 
Why not grow to some advancement, some 

perfection in their kind ? 
The life which God hath given, should His 

grace repent it, — 
Unmaking creatures He hath made, as if 

His thought had failed ? 



Of the future of Animals. 233 

All are wonderful and exquisite, miracles of 
varied excellence, 

From nature's rational lord, to his least and 
lowest serf: 

Why should a so-called instinct, the heaven- 
tutored mind of brutes, 

Be clean wiped out for ever, as in blank an- 
nihilation, — 

Nor rather still teach angels, wondering to 
see the spider spin, 

Praising in brighter skies the jewelled bosom 
of the humming-bird, 

Exhilarated even in their hymns by the 
skylark's whirl of song, 

Delighted with creature comeliness, and 
yearning over animal affection ? 

It were a dull flat world, a creation of less 
interest than ours, 



234 Of the future of Animals. 

If indeed man's future home possess no 
lower inmates ; 

If there be no gradations, no humbler tribe 
than we, — 

All of one royal race, earth-kings, — but 
with no subjects, — ■ 

Lacking this elaborated order, upholding and 
depending, 

To prove the Maker's attributes and mag- 
nify His wisdom ; 

With no multitudinous links in nature's 
coat of chain 

To show how strong she standeth, a pano- 
plied Minerva ; 

Only one tame dead level, incomplicate and 
shorn of mysteries, 

A world of one idea, and void of varied 
genius. 



Of the future of Animals. 235 

This is but a life of introductions, beginnings 

seeds and eggs, 
All to fructify hereafter, germinating humbly 

here ; 
A drop-scene of foreshadowings, on passing 

clouds that vanish, 
Photographs of circumstance and character, 

the substance whereof is yet to come. 
Therefore it is wise and well to see new 

friends and places, 
To gain, even at the end of life, elements of 

new knowledge, 
Hereafter to be carried freely forward, that 

when we fail for time 
Such seeming-mammon friends may receive 

us in eternal habitations : 
Here we touch the clues that lead us on to 

ever-blooming gardens, 



2 3 6 Of the future of Animals. 

Here, mysterious truth, we plant our seeds 
of being. 



Everything that hath been and that is, and 
all things that yet may have to be, 

Here but in type and show, shall be repro- 
duced in antitype hereafter : 

" Resurgam " is the solemn word inscribed 
on every fact, 

The feeblest thing that ever was shall have 
its resurrection. 

We gain part-alphabets of knowledge, in 
nature art and science, 

Like children at their infant school, conning 
primer lessons; 

But all, that here is so incipient, shall grow 
to its perfection ; 



Of the future of Animals. 237 

No creature shall be wasted, or despised, or 

cast away. 
Why should it only be for men, that mighty 

restoration ? 
Annihilation of His works were not The 

Maker's glory. 
Man, his own historian, celebrateth only 

man, 
Claiming redemption for himself, all else in 

condemnation ; 
The sinner alone, forsooth, the King is to 

be saved, 
But the whole of his innocent serf-kingdom 

to be quenched and annulled for ever ! 



-Not so ! all God's pensioners, animal, 
vegetal, mineral, 



2 3 8 Of the future of Animals. 

Every note that hath resounded on the 

timbrels of His Providence, 
Every thought and deed, every passion and 

fancy, 
Every idle word, and every sinful act, 
Every sparrow in its fall, as every Christian 

in his death, 
All shall live again, and have immortal 

sequence, — 
The trail of each creature in its progress; 

for all things have their seeming 

souls, 
Recorded at least on spirits' memories, if not 

themselves pure spirit. 
He that believeth Resurrection must carry 

it out unto the end ; 
Nothing perisheth utterly, soul or mind or 

matter : 



Of the future of Animals. 239 

Nothing continueth in one stay, moving 

ever onward \ 
Progress is the common law, toward infinite 

good or evil. 
The fashion of this world fadeth, but its 

recollections live for ever ; 
None may obliterate the thought, that once 

hath stood a thing : 
And it is a weakness in the argument to 

claim immortality for man, 
Refusing to all humbler life a future grade 

of being. 
Creation is one whole, glorifying God 

throughout, 
From suns to microscopic monads, all are 

linked together ; 
All, the archangel, — and the worm, — shall 

progress to perfection in their kind, 



240 Of the future of Animals. 

All shall praise the Maker in their season at 
their best. 



Behold yon dying saint, with heaven shin- 
ing on his face, 
A merchant-prince in every sense, and rich 

for either world ; 
As he lieth dying, he calleth for his dear 

old dog, 
Faithful companion of his walks, when he 

went about doing good ; 
And as, in love and grief, the poor dumb 

creature whining, 
Licketh his wasted cheek, and the thin 

hand hanging by the bedside, 
Hearken to this dreary lamentation : — Alas ! 

my noble friend, 



Of the future of Animals. 241 

There is no future hfe for thee, — farewell 

for ever and ever ! — 
Did not the Christian in that word confirm 

the falsehood of the infidel, 
The dark dread hope of wickedness, his lie, 

annihilation ? 
And shall we not judge that the poor Indian 

who looked for his faithful dog 
Still to be found with him in bliss, on the 

happy shores of the departed, 
Truly was wiser than the poet, whose rhyme 

hath immortalized that ignorance, 
And, all untutored as he was, taught the 

philosopher a lesson ? 



Our spirits live and die not ; our bodies live 
awhile and die, 

R 



242 Of the future of Animals. 

Rising for reunion with those spirits, to live 
anew whole creatures : 

Shall there be for such fair tabernacles, where- 
with we shall soon be clothed-upon, 

No hangings and no furnitures, no thrones 
nor harps nor crowns, 

No palms, and no white raiment, no jewels, 
incense, flowers, 

No birds nor butterflies nor crystals, no 
wonders and no beauties, 

No better remembrancers of earth, our pil- 
grimage of trial, 

No chariots and no horses, no friends of our 
old hearths ? 

Verily, beautified and glorified, all such 
shall live again; 

The whole creation groaneth, travailing for 
that life : 



Of the future of Animals. 243 

Yet shall there be a Restitution, a resurrec- 
tion real for all things, 

Creatures, circumstances, pageants, deeds and 
words and thoughts ; 

All have been figured on the light, all are 
waved upon the air, 

All have been fixed in unalterable fact, 
all were the beginnings of unendings. 

Nothing can escape its future; for every- 
thing is a seed, 

Germinating for the vast hereafter, and to 
flower in its season. 

It is false and weak and foolish to confine 
the resurrection unto man, 

A plot of human vanity, but not the plan 
of God: 

Man is but one among the meshes, of the 

knitted raiment of needlework, 

R 2 



244 Of th e f u t ure °f Animals. 

Wherewith the King of kings is pleased to 
clothe Himself, 

The one whole vesture of creation, woven 
from the top throughout, 

Wherein His attributes are seen, braided in 
many patterns ; 

And if one loop thereof be dropt, a rent is 
made in glory, 

The beautiful mosaic of His cosmos hath its 
pavement incomplete. 

None of His works were lightly made, nor 
meant to be repented ; 

He is the Builder and the Maker, never de- 
signing a destruction. 

That which is shall ever be, ripening to per- 
fection in its kind, 

Or haply, through mysteries of evil, rotting 
to corruption everlasting : 



Of the future of Animals, 245 

For, all that God hath made shall live in 

His own life, 
Shall live according to its works, for glory 

or for shame, 
Henceforth, if grace prevail, rejoicing in His 

mercy, 
Henceforth, if evil overcome, contending 

with His justice ! 



Thou objectest, Life for any time is gain ; 

and to brutes annihilation were no loss, 
If it pleaseth the Great Architect of all to 

be wasteful of His skill : 
Be that life ephemeral as a May-fly's, or a 

hundred years as of a raven, 
Thou sayest, it is the creature's gain, and so 

its Maker's grace. 



246 Of the future of Animals. 

True, if that life be full of pleasure ; but 

what if it be little else than pain ? 
Hath the creature then no controversy, with 

its Maker, being innocent ? 
And would the Great Just Judge wait for 

some eloquent advocate, 
And not be Himself that counsel, arguing 

for justice to his prisoner ? 
If brutes have no hereafter, what an unequal 

lot 
Between the pampered lapdog, and the 

starving hound, — 
The flayed Abyssinian bull, moaning beside 

his banquetters, 
And happy kine afield, lazily cropping in 

the sunshine : 
With us, futurity will compensate, and 

Lazarus leceive his mercies, 



Of the future of Animals. 247 

But wherein is there justice to the dogs who 

licked his sores ? 
Wherein, for the hideous live dissections, 

victims of a Spallanzani's scalpel ? 
Wherein, for the maimed and tortured, all 

cruelly entreated innocents, — 
If He, who pleased to make them, made 

them only for their woes, 
And, sinless as they stand, destined for them 

nought but suffering ? 



If brutes have no hereafter, where are the 
accusers of the cruel, — 

The gambler's screaming cock, live-roasted 
from the main ; 

The worn-out war-horse at his last, tor- 
mented day after day 



248 Of the future of Animals. 

By cold-blooded surgical fiends, agonising 

all its life-strings ; 
The starved, the skinned, the battered, — 

the bulldog maimed before he fought, 
Wretched victims of the vice, the hateful- 

ness and sins of man ? 
Shall none of these arise to judgment ? will 

none bear witness on the guilty ? 
Must cruelties to all beneath them be utterly 

excused to men ? 
If sheer annihilation be their fate, — what 

mattereth ? — for there be no accusers ; 
And so, the worst monsters of mankind 

unjustly miss their punishment : 
But, great Justice liveth; eternal Justice 

liveth ! 
Guilt shall not go scatheless, Innocence 

shall not be unavenged. 



Of the future oj Animals. 249 

The whole creation groaneth, travailing in 

pain together, 
Waiting till the sons of God, through 

Christ, are raised to glory : 
And the creature was made subject unto 

death, not by its own default, 
But as following the fortunes of its lord, 

and subjected alike in hope : 
For the creature itself shall be delivered ; 

to the humblest, from the bondage ox 

corruption; 
Into that liberty and glory, the children of 

God made free. 

O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the 
Lord, — praise Him and magnify Him 
for ever ! 



250 Of the future of Animals. 

Men and things and elements, and beasts 

and feathered fowls ! 
Let none be missing from the feast for 

Earth and all her children ; 
But let whatever hath had being, praise 

Him and magnify Him for ever ! 
He is not the God of the dead, nor hath 

made any covenant with destruction, 
Nor worketh capriciously for time, but with 

solid resolution for eternity : 
Life is His glory, and not death ; happiness 

and not annihilation ; 
Complacent satisfaction in His creature, and 

no caprice or change. 
It shineth out a good great truth, that the 

regeneration of the world 
Through Christ's grand sacrifice for all, not 

only men but things, 



Of the future of Animals. 25 1 

Shall demonstrate the Maker's mercy, eter- 
nal, without stint, 
To every creature of His skill, preserved in 

man's redemption. 
Earth's thousand years of days of years, its 

manifold millennium, 
Its Sabbath-life of holy-day, its holiday 

from sin, 
Shall gladden all creation in our expanded 

globe 
Grown to be a spiritual orb, lighter, 

brighter, vaster ; 
Thus shall it be filled for evermore with its 

own regenerate creatures, 
The home for all its pensioners that here 

received their life ; 
And so, dear Mother Earth, full of our 

childhood's memories, 



252 Of the future of Animals. 

Will then stand one of many stars whereto 

we men may speed 
Freely at our innate power and will, coming 

and going everywhere, 
As the angels of Jacob's ladder, linking 

world with world, 
No longer chained to one by grovelling 

gravitation, 
But in a spiritual liberty made freemen of 

them all : 
Yet, oftenest revisiting dear Earth, and lin- 
gering there among her creatures, 
In her grand apotheosis for all Nature, not 

only men and women, 
But humblest things as highest, insects 

beasts and fishes, 
The briar and the rose, the lion and the ox, 

and trees and flowers of the field, 



Of the future of Animals. 253 

All, with evil flung aside, and death and sin 
forgotten, 

Praising the Lord who made them and mag- 
nifying Him for ever ! 



( 2 54 ) 



Of Happiness together or alone. 



In Paradise before the fall God instituted 

marriage, 
And Jesus first wrought miracle to bless a 

wedding feast. 
With God Himself in Eden for His young 

unguilty creatures 
Verily, like all things else, was wedlock very 

good; 
And, if once more the Present God work 

signs and wonders for it, 
Again it must be very good, as nothing else 

on earth. 



Of Happiness together or alone. 255 

But, woe for fallen mortals ! their best estate 

is banned, 
Though flatteries and falsehoods are in 

league to hail it blessed ; 
And youth is ever full of hope, but age hath 

left off hoping ; 
While truths are told by neither, as enjoined 

from social fraud : 
Romance falsifieth one view, conventional 

morality the other, 
And gallantries and compliments combine 

to hide stern facts. 



But, — so many miserable mistakes, and all 

without a cure ! 
The wrong sort idly won, the right sort left 

unwooed ; 



256 Of Happiness together or alone. 

That fatal vow once taken, thenceforward 

hope is over ; 
Mated opposites contend, unmated concords 

pine. 
So often total wreck, with no space given for 

repentance, 
Mezentian marriage chaining fast the living 

to the dead, 
Hot-hearted youth with frozen age, or purity 

with baseness, 
And so to dwell together, as a pair, through 

love or hate : 
Alas! for it is but a single chance, once 

thrown for first and last, 
The gambler's desperate only cast, though 

flung away so lightly ; 
A cruelty on raw rash youth, hedged round 

with gay deceptions, 



Of Happiness together or alone. 257 

The cards are packed, the dice are weighted, 
— what chance of any escape ? 

So without cure and without end that lot is 
cast for life 

Which many know for misery, and none 
acknowledge perfect. 

Mutual hate should stand enough for ab- 
solute release, 

Or noted wrongs on either side, with equit- 
able adjustments : 

A bond with no redemption clauses is not 
just to man, 

In spite of all that Church can preach, or 
State enact to force it. 

Crime, insanity, sterility, these should break 
the bands ; 

And distortions of the spirit, as of body, 
sin against first principles in marriage. 



258 Of Happiness together or alone. 



O differences wide and deep, O contrasts 

infinitely varied 
Between those twain extremes, the happy 

and the miserable marriage ! 
Charity faith and hope, purity economy 

religion, 
These be the six Isaiah-wings to fledge that 

angel-home 
Where Love is found an inmate still with 

Hymen growing old, 
And two consenting creatures are as one for 

soul and body : 
But for their frequent harder fate whose 

wedlock is a chain 
Only to gall and shame and fret, and not 

that band of roses, 



Of Happiness together or alone. 259 

Enmity extravagance contempt, wrath strife 

envy opposition, 
These be the seven devils possessing that hot 

hearth. 



Ye many wicked wives, whose tempers blast 
your homes 

From nurseries for good to breeding-schools 
for evil, 

Woe for the misery and crime an aggra- 
vating tongue can cause, 

Woe for the comfort and content destroyed 
by your bitter provocations. 

Alas! how hard for the artizan, returned at 
even from his labour 

Weary of body and ill at ease in mind, and 
only craving rest, 

S 2 



260 Of Happiness together or alone. 

To be driven from his threshold by conten- 
tions, worried at each humble meal, 

And cheated of his needful sleep by wed- 
lock's clamouring tongue, 

Haply edged with jealousies, or petty spites 
and irritations, 

Now kith and kin maligned, and now some 
best friend slandered : 

And so his home is blighted ; he must court 
peace elsewhere, 

Closeshielded against clamour in a rancorous 
reserve : 

And children watch and wonder, taking 
warning from their parents, 

No refuge for the best but prayer, nor for 
the worst but flight ; 

The sons rebellious and selfwilled, as that 
usurping wife, 



Of Happiness together or alone. 261 

The daughters, like her husband, sadly- 
beaten down to silence. 

O bitter lie of law, O falsest dogma of 
society, 

That woman is controlled by man, and sub- 
ject to his will : 

Custom maketh Vashti stronger than her 
lord ; 

His hands are bound, his mouth is stopped ; 
how can he force obedience ? 



And you, O many vicious husbands, hypo- 
crites in much sin, 

With whom the haply kinder wives are 
patient in your homesteads, 

Ye drunken and low revellers, — or you of 
higher grade 



262 Of Happiness together or alone. 

Still profligate, though elders, and still 

shameless as in youth, 
Alas, how hard for women to be mated 

with such men, 
What martyrdom for gentle wives once 

married to such husbands ! 
Would that there could be just exchanges, 

the good to be consorted with the good, 
The wicked shackled to the wicked, as both 

shall be hereafter ; 
Would that some general gaol-delivery were 

given to the galley-slaves of marriage, 
Some amnesty for innocents who writhe 

beneath its yoke, 
Some second chance to cure the one great 

error made in life, 
Some nobler choice whereby the future 

should redeem the past ! 



Of Happiness together or alone, 263 



— Yet are there brighter phases ; that eclipse 

is not for all ; 
Some happy pairs go hand in hand along 

the vale of life, 
And see their children's children, and are 

blessed in old age, 
And only find in wedded love the avenue 

to heaven. 
And for the common sort, content, dull 

feeling, custom, 
Give average men their average peace, and 

such are counted happy ; 
But, sorrowful truth to say, the griefs no 

laws can cure 
Grow rankly in that search in vain for 

happiness together. 



264 Of Happiness together or alone. 



Then, what of single life,- — so often guilty 
freedom, — 

Doth it secure an average share of blessed- 
ness to man ? 

Our half sphere of the West, fast bound to 
stringent marriage, 

Is peopling fast with more unmated than 
are mated pairs : 

Are these happier in their lot ? — Many 
doubtless must be, 

FuH of charities and faith, sensible and 
contented : 

So they live beloved, so they die be- 
wailed, 

And their works do follow those good sis- 
ters and good brothers : 



Of Happiness together or alone. 265 

But for the multitude whose hope is selfish 

worldly happiness, 
Such fare not better singly, than those who 

missed it doubly. 



How many unwritten tragedies are round 

us everywhere, — 
What broken hearts, and starving souls, and 

unrecorded sorrows ! 
Little thou wottest of the trials that have 

made these what they are, 
With disappointment and delay for daily 

meat and drink. 
Behold some desolate old man, whose life 

is drained of love, 
No one nigh to care for him, and none that 

he can care for ; 



266 Of Happiness together or alone. 

He, for all his hardness now, was full of 

soft affections, 
Until bereavement tore away the best half 

of his heart; 
There was guiltiness in too much grief; but 

of thy charity consider 
How fond a lover once was yonder crabbed 

harsh old man. 
And lo, this withered sister, with her youth 

and beauty gone, 
Who gave away her heart, — but vainly, — 

long long years ago ; 
"What ? wilt thou taunt her with a jibe, or 

mock her by hard names, 
Where all thy sympathies should yearn on 

one of love's true martyrs ? 
Canst thou not guess how full of grief those 

long years must have passed, 



Of Happiness together or alone. 267 

Which dried away from woman's heart the 
lover wife and mother ? 

Shall nature's wounds be healed, or her 
quick feelings seared 

Without a thousand secret pangs and exqui- 
site regrets ? 

Hath it been no heart-ordeal, to have 
watched the bloom of beauty 

Faded from the unflattering glass, as middle 
age crept on, 

And still no lover at her feet, — though she 
hath loved so fondly, — 

No intimate to share and charm life's soli- 
tude away ? 

How loosely common friendships fill that 
hollow of the heart, — 

How coldly can the warmest compare with 
love and marriage ! 



268 Of Happiness together or alone. 

And in the coming day of sickness, the 

hour of inevitable death, 
To be lonely, husbandless and childless, un- 
loved, unmissed, uncared for, — 
Who will not pity, will not love, that 

solitary soul, 
With all its yearnings bruised, its milk of 

kindness soured ? 
There be vanities, there be follies; and 

much waste and wear of good ; 
Fancies overclouding life, and darkening 

half its sunshine : 
Often thus hath generous youth, aflame with 

early passion, 
Cruelly cheated of his idol, been withered to 

that desolate old age ; 
Often the fair young maid, who set her first 

fond love 



Of Happiness together or alone. 269 

On yon insensate soul, unconscious or un- 
worthy, 

Hath changed to be soured from her sweet- 
ness, by living all alone, 

And come to be the wreck of love thou hast 
not seldom seen. 



And what then is the moral of it all ? why 

these bitter words, 
Where most are found to say smooth 

things and prophesy deceits ? 
— Because of those deceptions, those flatteries 

and false speeches, 
Because the truth is rarely told, and never 

laid to heart, 
Because for human life the Preacher's text 

is Vanity, 



270 Of Happiness together or alone. 

And no one would be envied if his whole 
estate were known. 



Saving for that trinity of good, religion, 

health, and diligence, 
Wherewith in wedded state or single, none 

can live unhappy, 
All conditions of man's life, balanced on an 

equal scale, 
Are — some few pleasures, many pains, and 

much of care and vanity. 



( 2 7 I ) 



A National Hymn for Harvest. 



I. 

O bless the God of harvest, praise Him 
through the land, 

Thank Him for his precious gifts, His help, 
and liberal love ; 

Praise Him for the fields that have ren- 
dered up their riches, 

And, drest in sunny stubbles, take their 
Sabbath after toil ; 

Praise Him for the close-shorn plains, and 
uplands lying bare, 

And meadows, where the sweet-breathed hay 
was stacked in early summer ; 



272 A National Hymn for Harvest, 

Praise Him for the wheat-sheaves, gathered 
safely into barn, 

And scattering now their golden drops be- 
neath the sounding flail ; 

Praise Him for the barley-mow, a little hill 

of sweetness, 

Praise Him for the clustering hop, to add 
its fragrant bitter; 

Praise Him for the wholesome root, that 
fattened in the furrow; 

Praise Him for the mellow fruits, that bend 
the groaning bough : 

For blessings on thy basket, and for bless- 
ings on thy store, 

For skill and labour prospered well by 
gracious suns and showers, 

For mercies on the home, and for comforts 
on the hearth, 



A National Hymn for Harvest, 273 

O happy heart of this broad land, praise the 
God of harvest ! 



II. 

All ye that have no tongue to praise, we 

will praise Him for you, 
And offer on our kindling souls the tribute 

of your thanks : 
Trees and shrubs, and the multitude of herbs, 

gladdening the eyes with verdure, 
For all your leaves and flowers and fruits 

we praise the God of harvest ! 
Birds, and beetles in the dust, and insects 

flitting on the air, 
And ye that swim the waters in your scaly 

coats of mail, 

And steers, resting after labour, and timorous 

flocks afold, 

T 



J 



274 -A National Hymn for Harvest. 

And generous horses, yoked in teams to 
draw the creaking wains, 

For all your lives, and every pleasure so- 
lacing that lot, 

Your sleep, and food, and animal peace, we 
praise the God of harvest ! 

in. 

And ye, O some who never prayed, and 
therefore cannot praise ; 

Poor darkling sons of care and toil and un- 
illumined night, 

Who rose betimes, but did not ask a bless- 
ing on your work, 

Who lay down late, but rendered no thank- 
offering for that blessing 

Which all unsought He sent, and all un- 
known ye gathered, — 



A National Hymn for Harvest. 275 

Alas ! for you and in your stead, we praise 
the God of harvest ! 



IV. 

O ye famine-stricken glens, whose children 

shrieked for bread, 
And noisome alleys of the town, where 

fever fed on hunger, 
O ye children of despair, bitterly bewailing 

Erin, 
Come and join my cheerful praise, for God 

hath answered prayer: 
Praise him for the better hopes, and signs of 

better times, 
Unity gratitude contentment, industry peace 

and plenty; 
Bless Him that His chastening rod is now 

the sceptre of forgiveness, 

T 2 



276 A National Hymn for Harvest, 

And in your joy remember well to praise 
the God of harvest ! 



v. 

Come, gladly come along with me, and 

swell this grateful song, 
Ye nobler hearts, old England's own, her 

children of the soil : 
All ye that sowed the seed in faith, with 

those who reaped in joy, 
And he that drove the plough afield, with 

all the scattered gleaners, 
And maids who milk the lowing kine, and 

boys that tend the sheep, 
And men that load the sluggish wain, or 

neatly thatch the rick, — 
Shout and sing for happiness of heart, nor 

stint your thrilling cheers, 



A National Hymn for Harvest. 277 

But make the merry farmer's hall resound 

with glad rejoicings, 
And let him spread the hearty feast for joy 

at harvest home, 
And join this cheerful song of praise, — to 

bless the God of harvest ! 



( *78 ) 



A National Dirge in Trouble. 



I. 

We have sinned, we have sinned with our 
fathers — O Judge and Saviour! we 
have sinned ; 

We had forgotten our God, and His judge- 
ments lie heavily upon us : 

We went aside and did great wickedness, 
we have transgressed His command- 
ments, 

There is no health in our bones, we are 
punished according to our sins : 

Yet would we return to Thee O Lord, ac- 
knowledging the guilt of our iniquities, 



A National Dirge in Trouble. 279 

And flinging off the burden of it all, if 
haply Thou wilt bless us with repent- 
ance: 

Hear us, O Merciful and Mighty, hear and 
forgive us in Thy pity, 

Help Thy people, O Lord, for the sake of 
our Redeemer Thine anointed. 

II. 

Alas ! for our transgressions have been multi- 
plied, and therefore Thine anger is 
upon us ; 

Through grace we would confess them, in 
sure hope of Thy forgiveness: 

Our cities are foul with sin, evil goeth 
shameless in our streets, 

Our lanes have lost their innocence, our 
fields are full of violence ; 



280 A National Dirge in 7 "rouble. 

The strong oppress the weak, and the weak 
defraud the strong, 

And all alike forget their Maker and Pre- 
server ; 

Blasphemy shouteth in the mine, cruelty 
smiteth on the highway, 

Meanness cheateth at the workshop, tyranny 
tormenteth in the factory : 

Our rich have rioted in luxury, feasting 
themselves without fear, 

Our poor in bitterness and hate rebel against 
their poverty ; 

Our prophets have taught lies, our lawgivers 
thrive upon corruption, 

Our rulers have not ruled in righteous- 
ness, nor the people been obedient in 
godliness, 



A National Dirge in Trouble. 281 



Rights are humbled to the dust, while 
wrongs are throned upon high places, 

Good hath perished from among us, and no 
man layeth it to heart. 

III. 

Therefore the wrath of the Almighty is 

hot against His people, 
Therefore He blesseth our enemies, and goeth 

not forth with our armies : 
Therefore our flocks and herds have perished 

in their pastures by ten thousands, 
Therefore pestilence and famine have heaped 

our thresholds with the dead ; 
Our harvests were not gathered, the elements 

fought against us ; 
Disease and want and misery are dwellers in 

our homes ; 



282 A National Dirge in Trouble. 

Our light is turned to darkness, our name is 

shamed among the nations, 
The glory of Britannia is departed, the 

honour of old England is brought 

low. 

IV. 

Yet, — Holy Lord our God, arise ! pity and 

forgive Thy people 
Put not away Thy mercies, for we will put 

aside our sins : 
The hireling shall no longer be oppressed, 

the right of the poor shall be avenged, 
Thy Sabbaths shall be sanctified, Thy tithes 

and offerings paid; 
Thy temples shall be full of worshippers, 

Thy ministers be honoured through 

the land, 



A National Dirge in 7 'rouble. 283 

Our prayers and our alms shall go up, ac- 
ceptably through Jesus unto Thee ; 

We will take no wicked thing in hand, our 
hearts shall be set against all evil, 

Sin shall not revel in our streets, nor drunk- 
enness pollute our villages; 

We will return and repent, the Lord our 
God preventing us, 

We will call Thee Our Father, and Thou 
shalt be gracious to Thy children : 

Yea, consider our adversity, withhold not 
mercy from us ; 

Art Thou not our Father ? Are we not 
Thy children ? 



Yea ; we will magnify Thy mercy, or ever 
we have risen from our knees, — 



284 A National Dirge in Trouble. 

Thou dost forgive and love us, Thou yet 

wilt help and save us, — 
The plague our iniquities deserved Thy 

pitifulness will scatter, 
The flaming sword of punishment shall yet 

be sheathed in mercy : 
Therefore unto Thee will we give thanks, 

even in this time of trouble ; 
With humiliation on our heads, yet will we 

rejoice in our hearts : 
Thou shalt go forth with our armies, Thy 

blessing shall shine on our homes, 
Thou wilt give increase to our flocks, and 

fill our barns with harvest, 
Thou shalt favour our England, the Zion 

of these latter days, 
And keep her chief among the nations, as 

she ever was of old ; 



A National Dirge in Trouble. 285 

For happy are the people, even in the midst 
of sore distresses, 

Who turn to the Lord their Maker, and 
trust in Him for mercy and deliver- 
ance! 



( 286 ) 



A National Psalm of Victory, 



Blessed be the God of our Israel, praised 

be the Lord of our Zion, 
Jehovah hath gone forth with our hosts, 

and hath given to us victory in the 

battle ! 
He is our helper and defender, the rock of 

our strength and our fortress, 
He hath delivered us in trouble, and saved 

us from the wrath of our enemies ; 
By Him have we overcome the proud, by 

Him have we escaped the terrible, 



A National Psalm of Victory. 287 

He sent forth His arrows and scattered them, 
He shot out His lightnings and de- 
stroyed them; 

He gave us the shield of His salvation, and 
armed us with the spear of victory, 

He girded us with valour for the fight, and 
subdued the mighty under us ; 

We will thank Him among the nations, 
His name will we exalt among the 
heathen, 

Blessed be the God of our Israel, praised be 
the Lord of our Zion ! 

11. 

Awake, awake, utter a song; for God is 

our sword and buckler ; 
There were thunders from the Lord out of 

heaven, hailstones and coals of fire ; 



288 A National Psalm of Victory. 

Then did the standard-bearers faint, then 
were the horsehoofs broken, 

There brake He the arrow and bow, and 
burned their chariots in the fire : 

He breathed on them and they were con- 
sumed, He poured on them the blast of 
His displeasure, 

He brought down their honour to the dust, 
and made them flee before us : 

Who is God, except the Lord ? Who hath 
any strength but our God ? 

Great deliverance hath He given, and 
shown great mercy to His people; 

He alone is to be praised, and unto Him 
will we pour thank-offerings, — 

Blessed be the Rock of our strength, let the 
God of our salvation be exalted ! 



A National Psalm of Victory, 289 

in. 

Praise ye the Lord for avenging our Israel, 

all ye sons of war, 
Praise Him, all ye sons of peace, who 

offered yourselves so willingly ; 
Praise Him, nobles of the land, with peace 

restored to your possessions ; 
Praise him, all ye people, with plenty 

returning to your homes : 
And thou, chief Mother in Israel, give 

thanks among thy children, 
That wars have ceased in all the earth, and 

those who delight in them are scattered ; 
Give thanks that the right is set on high, give 

thanks that the wrong is trodden down, 
That the teeth of the ungodly have been 

broken, and the faces of the righteous 

been made glad ; 



290 A National Psalm of Victory. 

That England, the Israel of God, is head 
and chief among the Gentiles, 

Rejoice, O Queen and people, and magnify 
the Rock of our salvation. 

IV. 

And ye, O many sorrowing widows, O 
thousands of bereaved mothers, 

O fathers mourning for your sons, O friends 
bewailing friends, 

In the midst of your earthly desolation, re- 
member ye how honourably they died, 

As duty bade and noble thoughts and 
country's love and heaven : 

Give thanks, for your dear ones are vic- 
torious, victorious for either world, 

With names of glory here, and crowns of 
immortality hereafter ; 



A National Psalm of Victory. 291 

Give thanks in hope and faith, in charity, 

strength and patience, 
And add your wailing minor to our swelling 

psalm of praise ; 
May all help freely for your needs, pour 

balm upon your sorrows, 
And make you rich in sympathies, and alms 

and pensioned praise. 

v. 

And, O thou Zoar of the plains, O thou 

Goshen in this Egypt, 
Island city of refuge for the nations of the 

Earth, 
England, happy shore, hill where the true 

light shineth, 
Home of real religion, freedom, tolerance, 

and truth, 

u 2 






292 A National Psalm of Victory. 

Rejoice and shout the hymn of praise 

through all the countries round, 
From sea to sea, from land to land, where'er 

thy flag is flying, 
Let cannon roar thy thankfulness, and bells 

clang out thy joy, 
And prayer and praise and alms go up, as 

incense to High Heaven ; 
For God hath blest us every way, at home, 

by sea, by land, 
And we will thank Him evermore, in 

prayers and alms and praises. 



( 2 93 ) 



The Seven Sayings. 



Seven tones in music, seven shades in light, 
Seven deadly sins, and seven cardinal 

virtues, 
Seven angels, seven trumpets, seven seals 

and vials, 
Seven thunders, seven plagues, seven spirits 

of God, 
Seven stars and seven churches, seven days 

and nights, 

And seven thousand years for earth, and 

man with seven ages, 
And seven sages of old Greece, with seven 

famous proverbs, 



294 The Seven Sayings. 

And seven words of mercy dropped by 

Christ upon His cross. 
Keen is the worldly wisdom in those 

maxims of the sages, 
And deep the spiritual love in Jesu's seven 

sayings ; 
Awhile then, friend, aside with me, to step 

within the Porch, 
And after, linger near that Cross for comfort 

and for counsel. 



First, with Athenian Solon, " Know thy- 
self," O man ! 

A humbling lesson and a strange, an thou 
learn it truly ; 

Pass by the secrets of creation, till thou hast 
mastered this, 



The Seven Sayings. 295 

And heed thy good and evil, thy powers 

and thy duties : 
Next, with the Spartan Chilo, — whose full 

heart burst for joy 
When his good son had triumphed in the 

great Olympian games, — 
" Look to the end of life," an end, worth 

all its midway running, 
So thou be crowned like that good son, a 

conqueror in the race : 
Watch well with Lesbian Pittacus, who 

flung his net so shrewdly, 
To " Seize occasion " ere it pass, and so thy 

chance be gone; 
Occasion for thy tongue to speak, as for thy 

hand to strike, 
Occasion to thy neighbours' help, and in 

thine own behalf; 



296 The Seven Sayings. 

Let frank and honest Bias tell out bluntly 

sad experience, 
"The most of men are evil," — none are 

righteous — no, not one ; 
AmbracianPeriandersayeth, "Industry is all," 
That diligence must win each prize, and 

conquer every foe ; 
The graceful Cleobulus prayed well for 

moderation, 
Nothing too much, " The mean is best," the 

happy golden mean ; 
And cautious Thales filled the sum, with 

" Haste if thou wouldst fail ;" 
For well he knew that evil haste could never 

make good speed : 
So, this was the best flowering of the 

wisdom of the wise, 
They served their generation well, those 

seven Grecian sages. 



The Seven Sayings. 297 



Now, let us stand on Calvary beside that 

sorrowing Mother, 
And listen to these nobler seven utterances 

of Jesus. 
It was the sixth hour, yet blackness hung 

over all the land, 
Nature put on mourning for her King, and 

the eye of day was darkened ; 
And there upon that bitter Cross the 

Sacrifice is nailed, 
Heavily hanging in weakness, racked and 

torn and bleeding; 
For three long hours hath He hung, agonized 

in soul and body, 
That blessed Christ, embracing all the world 

with out-stretched arms, 



298 The Seven Sayings. 

Lifted between earth and heaven, as if out- 
cast from them both, 

But drawing all men unto him, in love and 
adoration. 

There, without one moan, one murmur, 
grandly patient, 

The Lamb endured the uttermost wrath 
of God against all sin, 

And ever as the weary hours dragged on in 
ceaseless torture, 

At seven throes of pain He dropped His 
seven precious sayings. 



First, when they reared Him on the nails, 
and racked Him in the raising, 

How did He greet their cruelty, how re- 
quite His murderers ? 



The Seven Sayings. 299 

His thought was infinite compassion, to put 
away the greatness of their sin, 

" Father, forgive them, Our Father ! for 
they know not what they do." 

Lo, what a triumph over self, what a con- 
quering of agony and vengeance, 

How worthy of the suffering Man in whom 
the Godhead dwelt ! 

Ay, and that prayer was answered, — The 
Father did forgive ; 

Those who nailed Him to the cross were 
martyred for the Christ ; 

So for all time He teacheth us, to forgive as 
we hope to be forgiven, 

Evermore He preacheth intercession, even 
for the cruellest of foes. 



300 The Seven Sayings, 

Beside Him hung on either hand that pair 

of common thieves, 
For ever famous as His comrades in that 

darkest hour. 
And as the one contendeth — Save thyself 

and us, 
And as the other upbraideth, — Dost not 

thou fear God ? 
Hearken to the gracious word in answer to 

that prayer, 
Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest 

in Thy Kingdom, — 
"To-day shalt thou be with me in the 

paradise of God P 
For in faith He asserted even then, in the 

lowest pit of all those depths, 
His right to redeem and to reward, as the 

Judge while the Victim of Mankind. 



The Seven Sayings. 301 

The next " Ah why hast Thou forsaken 

me, why hast Thou forsaken me, my 

God?" 
Our type for prayer in sorrow, when God 

seemeth so far off. 
Yet, hath He forsaken His Anointed ? Is 

He not with Him in trouble, 
Though dwelling in the darkness, and with 

clouds around His throne ? 
The Sacrifice was heaped with sin, and 

judgment crushed its victim, 
Therefore in momentary gloom God's eye 

was turned away : 
But the great Antitype of David followed 

on that psalm, 
And ended, ere its close, with praise for a 

ransomed universe. 



302 The Seven Sayings. 



And now, O weeping mother, O sorrowing 

dear disciple, 
Ye twain whom Jesus loved, and who loved 

Him to the end, 
" Behold thy mother, O son, O son behold 

thy mother," — 
The richest of bequests to both, that dying 

Friend could leave. 
In deep considerate carefulness and self-for- 
getting grace 
He taught us kindly to provide for those 

we leave behind. 
This world is bleak for them, though stars 

be opening bright for us ; 
Let no man's pious hope elsewhere ignore 

their state on earth : 



The Seven Sayings. 303 

Here is this fourth word's lesson, remember 

thine own kindred, 
And in the very throes of death, be generous 

and be just. 



Then, did He gasp, " I thirst:" He willed 

fulfilment of the Scripture, 
Humbled down to human wants, parched 

in the dust of death : 
As with the woman of Samaria, when he 

fainted in the tropical mid-day, 
Here His tongue was cleaving, dry to the 

roof of His mouth, — 
Therefore gasped He in His agony, — and 

Heaven heard The Maker 
Asking for a drop of water, sent to cool his 

tongue ! 



304 The Seven Sayings. 

And the tender mercies of the cruel have 

their potion ready, 
Wine and myrrh to deaden pain, and so 

prolong panged life ; 
But He will not drink an anodyne ; and so, 

I thirst, I thirst, 
Went up as a holy aspiration, conquering 

the weakness of the flesh : 
I thirst to do Thy will ; I thirst to win for 

them salvation ; 
I thirst, — my soul is athirst to save the 

world for God ! 



Next, as a Son with His own Father, com- 
mendeth He His human spirit 

Manfully and faithfully to God, — yea, 
" into Thine own hands." 



The Seven Sayings. 305 

Lo, what a pattern unto us, going down 
into that dark valley — 

Lo, what encouragement and comfort, in 
commending our own souls thither- 
ward : 

For He trusted His God and our God, His 
Father and our Father, 

And by His great example we will bravely 
live or die. 

Now lastly, note of triumph, like a blast 

upon the trumpet, 
Exultingly with loud last voice, proclaimed 

He " It is finished ! " 
O word of deepest comfort to the doubting 

fearing soul, 
O talisman of power to still the storm of 

conscience ! 

x 



306 The Seven Sayings. 

The happy angels on their harps rejoiced in 

It is finished, 
And evil ones heard It is finished, echoed 

on their thunders : 
It is finished ; Justice hath been satisfied in 

full; 
It is finished ; Heaven is free, and open to 

the lost ; 
It is finished ; Death is dead, and Sin clean 

washed away, 
The watchword of salvation was that 

seventh It is finished. 



3°7 



Final. 

— ♦ — 

Who can hope for any ends, in this life- 
cycle of beginnings ? 

There is no end to mind or thoughts, or 
making many books. 

Where is an end to arts, or sciences, or 
mysteries of nature, 

And how should immortal spirits accom- 
plish full development in time ? 

None can work perfection to the uttermost 
of his thought, 

The painter, sculptor, author, have no truly 

finishing touches: 

X 2 



308 Final. 

Nature is perfect but not Art ; in time we 

only can begin ; 
Eternity must deal with ends, and close up 

all hereafter : 
Yea, through the ages everlasting, we all 

shall live and grow, 
For good or ill, for joy or woe, for endless 

shame or glory. 



Again, I have written at my best, according 

to the mercies given me ; 
And speak of deeper themes than some I 

touched in earlier days. 
Hath thy dog a spirit? hath my soul its 

angel ? 
Is this world so very old? are all creeds 

mere outworks ? 



Final. 309 

Is everything here but a beginning, whose 
end must rise again ? 

Is each circumstance a consequence, abso- 
lutely everywhere at all times ? 

Can some spirits come again, and haunt 
their earthly homes ? 

Are the stars those many mansions for the 
saints of God ? 

Is morality the end, and even the Gospel 
but a mean ? 

Shall not purity of heart be after all a neces- 
sary heaven ? 

Are all facts so probable, didst thou know 
their causes, 

That one might haply prophesy the future 
from the past ? 

These be among my many speculations, 
these and scores beyond, 



3 1 o Final. 

And some shall meet with scorn, and some 
with disputation. . 



And many themes beside must challenge 

special anger ; 
Why turn and rend the jackals, like a 

leopard brought to bay ? 
Why hint that human life, its double state 

or single, 
Is either way a failure, and not blessedness 

at all ? 
How durst he speak so boldly, and so 

savagely tell truths ? 
We hate a prosing Mentor in the gardens 

of Calypso : 
Wherefore should he steal old texts from 

Deborah and Barak, 



Final. 311 

Presumptuously to lead the hymn of Britain 

in her victories ? 
Why for times of trouble pilfer, chiefly out 

of David, 
Bald phrases fit for Hebrew timbrels, not 

for English choirs ? """"* 

And so throughout, O foes, — why this, and 

why not that ? 
There is no end of questions, — which shall 

therefore have no answers. 



And yet for you, O friends, with kinder 

eyes than others, 
Whose generous love I cherish as a happier 

prize than fame, 
My answers — are they needed ? — may be 

read on these past pages, 



312 Final. 

With all their reasons writ out plain, in 

honest Roman hand ; 
Still, not all writ, but hinted ; less is uttered 

than was thought ; 
My spirit going forth with yours in charity 

and frankness : 
And courage hath its honour ; and not to 

fear for fame, — 
But, following conscience with high heart, 

serenely to forget it : 
And so, farewell, — in brief, farewell; we 

part, but not for ever ; 
If not again to meet on earth, in some bright 

star hereafter. 



Yea, for that the End is near at hand ; the 
issue of that great experiment 



Final. 313 

Wherein, to the teaching of the universe, 

God hath tested man • 
For the first time giving to the creature full 

freedom of the will, 
That he might tempt, six thousand years, the 

patience of his Maker. 
Now all the prophecies are closed ; Now 

is the cycle finished ; 
The fields are white with harvest, and the 

world well-ripe for judgment ; 
Verily, the Christ is nigh to come; His 

chariot is made ready, 
The sign of the Son of Man in heaven shall 

soon be seen, — His Cross upon the 

skies ; 
And then all enigmas shall be solved, true 

justice must be rendered, 



314 Final. 

The churches and the kingdoms and the 

antichrists, the saints, the world, the 

martyrs, 
All shall be shown to have achieved the 

ends of their existence, 
And Providence be proved throughout the 

sister-twin of Grace. 



END. 



J. Swift, Regent Press, 55, King Street, W. 



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